What does surprise look like?Self-commissioned research by Studio Hellicar into human expression

How do people express themselves when they are surprised?, WDCD alumnus Pete Hellicar asked himself. ‘As part-time scientists full-time adventurers we wanted to work this out the simplest way we knew possible: observing them in slow motion!,’ he writes on his website.

Together with Dan Joyce, Hellicar created a slow-motion portraiture machine to capture the emotions of surprise and joy. The machine surprised people with a burst of compressed air and colourful confetti cannon. Next they could manipulate the process themselves. The result is a funny collection of Moving Portraits.

‘We had a blast doing it (literally!),’ says Hellicar.