21st Century Gestures Clip Art Collection

Documenting how the body makes The Network visible, legible

In August 2012, Nicolas Nova asked me to write an essay for a project he was doing. (This piece was originally published at cityofsound.com on 4th September 2012.) Nicolas said they’d been working on a catalogue of novel “gestures, postures and digital rituals” and could I write about that, please, as a kind of foreword.

Curious Rituals is a research project conducted at Art Center College of Design (Pasadena) in July-August 2012 by Nicolas Nova (The Near Future Laboratory / HEAD-Genève), Katherine Miyake, Nancy Kwon and Walton Chiu from the media design program. (It) is about gestures, postures and digital rituals that typically emerged with the use of digital technologies…

It so happens that, for some years now, I’d been collating a catalogue of novel gestures and interactions myself and had never got round to doing anything with it. So Nicolas’s kind request gave me the chance to get it off my computer and onto the internet. Thanks Nicolas!

One outcome of their project is a rather nice short film; another is their book, here. My ‘preface’ is reproduced below. Please note: as you’ll see, this is not intended to be thorough, complete or even coherent — but you’ll get the gist. I would guess many of us have such a list. It’s probably more about noticing as a kind of practice, as a curious ritual of its own, rather than the particular gestures themselves. Even though…