Emotional systems are systems that respond to programming that interprets human emotion. The artist can make the systems respond to live emotion, the viewer’s emotions, passerbys or entire cities, such as this emotional map of Greenwich.

Other examples in the article are installations that map the artist’s brainwaves, photographs that interpret historical artwork’s emotions, or systems that respond to changes in the space of the exhibition.

Emotion is a powerful tool to manipulate, whether passively reading and displaying it or attempting to instill emotional change in the viewer or public.