Aya Bentur

The choreography of object and gesture

Department: Social Design

Placing Gestures

This study explores the relationship between objects and gestures, examining the ongoing choreography between the two. The body is our tool to experience the space around us and engage with it, and we fill this space with the immateriality of our bodily gestures like we fill a room with material objects. Seeing immaterial actions as objects, or outcomes, leads to a different view of objects: one in which they can be regarded as facilitators of engagement, as materialising communication. Firstly, they are a tool for learning human gestures and the way these shape objects and their meaning. Secondly, they are a tool for repositioning the body in a space; a mediator between the body and the space it resides in. Finally, they are generators of gestures as outcomes, shifting the focus from use to subjectivity, from the object to the relationships it generates, to the gestures we form.