Circumscribe
full video
excerpt, 2:15 min
Who owns the archive of affectionate gestures? Technology companies have been patenting gestures for many years - some of which we have been using for more than a decade. To navigate and communicate with the interface, users must inevitably learn these corporate-developed gestures and move their bodies accordingly. Just as gesture vocabulary is homogenized, monetized, and absorbed into private property, these patents lay claim to human movement-both by claiming existing gestures and by prophylactically claiming a broad range for possible future use.
Circumscribe shows the schematic drawings and diagrams from these same patents along with flocks of birds, also a network aud individuals reacting to each other. In the background we hear the dense atmosphere of city sounds, interspersed with network pings, notifications and signaling noises of typical platform apps.
c/o in other people's hands, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin, DE ©Kim Bode
c/o in other people's hands, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin, DE
c/o in other people's hands, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin, DE
