Offensive Gesture
“Gestures themselves are nothing more than movements of expression which have been given special qualities by the urge to communicate and to understand”
-Wilhem Wundt (1973)
As a beginning point it is important to understand from a psychological lens what we mean when we say gesture. Wilhem Wundt investigated and created an advanced theory of gestures. In Language of Gesture (Wundt, 1973) he states, “Gestures themselves are nothing more than movements of expression which have been given special qualities by the urge to communicate and to understand”. Essentially we are the context to a gesture, and therefore alter how that gesture is interpreted.
Within our work we consider a gesture to be a hand movement that is illustrative of an expression. Why is it we all recognise an aggressive point as different to a directional point?
We want to explore how context affects the use of these, and explore the semiotics behind ‘offensive’ emblematic gestures.