The essence of what your language calls “gesture” is hard to say (Das Eigentliche dessen, was in Ihrer Sprache “Gebärde” heißt, läßt sich schwer sagen).
(Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, p. 18, Reference Heidegger1985, p. 102)1. Introduction
My aim in this article is to develop a phenomenological reflection on the question of gesture. However, gesture is not an easy task for a phenomenological approach, and this is perhaps the reason that this topic has only been rarely tackled by phenomenologists, and most often not in a straightforward way, but rather in a tangential and hasty manner. In the first section of this article, I will start by highlighting the difficulties encountered by any attempt to describe gesture in an applied phenomenological way, emphasizing that the irreducible plurality of gestures is constituted in various ways at the intertwining of several existential dimension, such as embodiment, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and language. Then, in the second section, I will place the phenomenon of gesture in relation to bodily movement and to the phenomenon of expressivity, differentiating gestures from non-gestural movements and non-gestural expressions. In the last two sections of the article, I will focus on two distinct approaches to the problem of gesture, both inspired by the phenomenological style of thought, and both operating with a paradoxical extension of the concept of gesture. On the one hand, in the Zollikon Seminars Martin Heidegger denies that the idea of expressivity is pertinent for determining the phenomenon of gesture. Instead, he states that human bodily movement as a whole should be understood as gesture, in contrast to the spatial movement of things. Heidegger also extends the term ‘gesture’ to non-bodily phenomena, reflecting, for example, the post-metaphysical understanding of the relation between thing and world. On the other hand, Vilém Flusser places first the phenomenon of gesture in relation to the difference between moods (Stimmungen) and affect (Gestimmtheit), understanding it as a symbolic movement for which we cannot find a satisfactory causal explanation. Flusser subsequently attempts to build ‘a general theory of gesture’ and proposes several classifications of gestures, according to their embodied character and their directionality, finally integrating under this notion a plurality of human practices and activities.
2. Gesture as a Phenomenological Dilemma
Understanding gesture philosophically — and especially phenomenologically — is a more difficult undertaking than it seems at first glance, and this despite the abundance of recent interdisciplinary research in the field of gesture studies (Calbris, Reference Calbris and Copple2011; Cienki & Müller, Reference Cienki and Müller2008; Duncan, Cassell, & Levy, Reference Duncan, Cassell and Levy2007; Kendon, Reference Kendon1996, Reference Kendon2004, Reference Kendon and Allan2013; McNeill, Reference McNeill2000; Streeck, Reference Streeck2009). If we ask ourselves what ‘gesture’ is in its essence (what makes a gesture be a gesture and nothing else), or how ‘gestures’ show themselves and what functions they have in our existential sphere, we encounter the main difficulty, i.e., that the very term ‘gesture’ covers a disturbing diversity of situations, seemingly irreducible to a common core. This circumstance is further complicated by the fact that, in addition to the use of the term to designate ‘actual gestures,’ we often encounter a rather figurative use of the notion of gesture (taken as a vague synonym for operation, action, practice, or act). But even if we put these figurative meanings in parentheses and take them out of the discussion, the formal versatility of gestures themselves and the luxuriant multiplicity of their modes of appearance constitute a universe in itself. For we can perceive simple gestures or gestures as complex and stratified as possible, just as we encounter spontaneously intelligible gestures or gestures that require decoding through a more laborious hermeneutics. There are gestures with a standardized meaning, unanimously recognizable, but there are also particularized gestures, either in the sense that they are intelligible only within a clearly circumscribed community, or that they are specific to the individual person in the singularity of that person's own gestural sphere. And, if we can easily recognize an approving (positive) gesture or a disapproving (negative) gesture, we also encounter equivocal and ambiguous gestures, the meaning of which is rather diffuse. There are direct gestures, which bring an obvious meaning into play, just as there are also indirect gestures, which engage a mediated meaning, one that is not apparent or cannot be caught at first, and among the latter we can place the so-called symbolic, metaphorical, allegorical, or hyperbolic gestures. We have gestures that consistently accompany speech, just as we have gestures that operate independently of spoken speech. Many gestures have a definite meaning-content, expressing a certain ‘something’ articulated by the structure of an ‘of’: gestures of helplessness, hatred, or exasperation; gestures of threat or of anger, pain, or suffering; gestures of protest, refusal, or disgust; gestures of joy, friendship, tenderness, or recognition; gestures of courtesy, kindness, or politeness; gestures of doubt, bewilderment, or perplexity, etc. But there are also simple indicative gestures, with circumstantial meaning (‘here,’ ‘look there,’ ‘come,’ etc.) or occasional meaning (‘this,’ ‘that,’ etc.; see Ferencz-Flatz, Reference Ferencz-Flatz2021), as well as gestures that do not offer in the first instance anything precise to be understood, while nevertheless being fully significant in their pure gestures (such as the gesture in dance). Then we can contrast evasive, hesitant, or flabby gestures with firm, determined, or energetic ones, or graceful, fine, elegant, or subtle gestures with boorish, rude, or cumbersome ones. We can distinguish between discreet and indiscreet gestures, between calm or measured gestures and agitated or precipitous gestures, between orderly or rhythmic gestures and chaotic and unpredictable gestures, between restrained or moderate gestures and exuberant or excessive gestures, just as we can differentiate public gestures from private gestures, gestures of infants from teenage gestures, feminine gestures from masculine gestures, etc.
Beyond this rather rhapsodic array, it is clear that the attempt to unify this phenomenal sphere and to extract certain essential characteristics from such an effervescent multiplicity seems doomed to failure from the very beginning. Therefore, the concept of gesture — which should, in principle, bring together the defining notes of this semantic field — evokes a rather unstable meaning. It is accordingly quite difficult to circumscribe the set of phenomena to which the concept would unequivocally correspond. Gestures are instead to be part of the category of those topics that are well known by default, but about which we discover multiple impediments when we try to determine them explicitly and rigorously. Consequently, we can assume that we are dealing with an “evanescent and ephemeral essence of gesture” (Formis, Reference Formis2015, p. 9) — in other words, that with the question of gesture, we enter into a rather volatile, rather slippery phenomenal area in which it is fundamentally difficult to establish fixed boundaries between what belongs intrinsically to the concept of gesture and what does not.
How, then, should we understand gesture: as movement or expression, as a sign or an action, as a situation or presence? The ‘phenomenon of gesture’ — if we are allowed to determine gesture as a phenomenon, as ‘what shows itself starting from itself’ — is far from being well circumscribed, clearly outlined, univocal, stable within its borders, fixed in a firm structure. How can we capture its meaning, especially if we bring into play related or neighbouring phenomena, such as ‘posture’ or ‘pose,’ ‘attitude’ or ‘conduct,’ ‘behaviour’ or ‘comportment’? Don't we have to deal with a myriad of situations and contexts that are only roughly defined within the semantic network of the term ‘gesture’?
It is clear, however, that the ‘phenomenon of gesture’ is constituted in the diffuse intersection of several existential dimensions, such as embodiment, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and language (the latter understood not only in the sense of communication, but also in the sense of expressivity). For there is no gesture that does not engage the body in a compelling way, just as we cannot conceive of a gesture without implying, in a very special sense, the opening to the other. At the same time, gestures often have a strong emotional charge (that's why we speak, for example, of gestures of exasperation, indignation, joy, surprise, etc.), even if they often involve the desire to express something specific, which places them on the horizon of discursiveness — in which case, we are confronted with the question of a language of gestures, as well as the relations between gestural language and spoken language. There is accordingly a sphere of gestures translatable into words, to which there corresponds, in reverse, the sphere of verbal units translatable into gestures. Thus, the boundary between gesture and word is often porous, since we are dealing with a ‘translatological’ permeability of meaning from one register to another. But we also have situations in which this permeability is not possible and in which the boundary between gesture and word is rather opaque: we are sometimes confronted with the ‘ineffable’ charge of gestures, just as some of the things we say cannot be gesturally represented at all. The sphere of ‘translatable gestures’ should therefore be contrasted with the sphere of ‘untranslatable gestures,’ that is, with those gestures to which no linguistic units or meaningful contents correspond. And, in return, we should also determine what segment of the spoken language (what layer of it or what kind of discourse) cannot usually be converted or translated into gestures (and why). Thus, in addition to the opposition between the sphere of gestures translatable into words and that of words translatable into gestures, we also have the opposition between the sphere of gestures untranslatable into verbal language and the sphere of those types of discursiveness that cannot be translated into gestures.
The fact that phenomenology, with its specific attention to concrete experience, has deepened in detail some basic structures of human existence — embodiment, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and language — is not a guarantee that, placed at their intertwining, the phenomenon of gesture would easily be captured at the very first attempt. The idea of sketching an eidetic approach to gesture is basically undermined by the fact that gestures always make sense in a determined and concrete cultural-linguistic context, thus always depending on various cultural codes. Since these plural local customs are impossible to universalize, it appears that here too, cultural anthropology once again challenges the eidetic aspirations of phenomenology and its maximalist claims to lawfulness and validity. Indeed, we often speak of ‘typical’ Italian gestures (Jorio, Reference Jorio and Kendon2001; Kendon, Reference Kendon1995; Poggi, Reference Poggi2002) or French gestures (Calbris, Reference Calbris and Doyle1990), even in a more particular sense of ‘typical Neapolitan’ or ‘typical Parisian’ gestures, with the idea that ‘certain’ gestures make sense only in and for ‘certain’ particular communities — some of which may have abundant gesticulation, while others may be characterized by rather ascetic and minimalist gesturing. For example, in Heidegger's “Dialogue on language,” when the Japanese interlocutor recalls Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, Heidegger mentions the peculiar “subdued gestures [verhaltene Gebärden]” appearing in the film, and emphasizes the difference between Japanese gestures and European gestures: “such gestures […] differ from our gestures [solche Gebärden, die anders sind als die unseren]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, p. 16, Reference Heidegger1985, pp. 99–100); moreover, when the Japanese interlocutor performs a minimalist gesture specific to the Nō theater, Heidegger simply acknowledges that it can hardly be understood by a Westerner (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, p. 18, Reference Heidegger1985, p. 102). In this sense, specific gestures are meaningful for specific communities.
These communities do not have to be exclusively geographical; they may very well be of a different nature. For example, the way a speaker at an academic conference wants to gesture that she is going to quote something, raising two fingers and moving them rhythmically, as if ‘imitating’ the shape of quotation marks, can be incomprehensible to someone who has no connection with the academic community. Here, we can include as well the emblematic gestures of particular communities and subcultures, such as hip-hop gestural stylistics, gestures of heavy metal fans, or the gestures of football team supporters, etc. Moreover, gesture and gesticulation also differ on the historical scale, because it is very possible that a perfectly intelligible gesture in the ancient or medieval world (or even more recently, three centuries ago) would be completely incomprehensible to us, even if historians may attempt skillful reconstructions of the significance of gestures effective in a given epoch and in a specified geographical area (Brubaker, Reference Brubaker2009; Depreux, Reference Depreux2009; Walter, Reference Walter2009), as well as tracing the evolution of the meanings of a gesture from one epoch to another (Bremmer & Roodenburg, Reference Bremmer and Roodenburg1991; Schmitt, Reference Schmitt1990).
Last but not least, the nature of gestures is particularized according to the existential framework in which they occur. In the first instance, we are dealing with the extremely wide and complex sphere of ‘everyday’ gestures, those that we routinely perform or frequently observe in our daily lives. In this effervescent context of everydayness, gestures either (constantly or intermittently) accompany speech or replace it, taking its place under certain circumstances. Even if the variety of everyday gestures defies any attempt at classification or systematization, we are still compelled to distinguish between two distinct levels. Most of the time the gestures occur in a spontaneous and pre-reflective way, in which case we can speak of unpremeditated, involuntary, and uncontrolled gestures, gestures that visibly concretize the genuine expressivity of an embodied subjectivity. This could be considered the primary form of gesture, that of an original expressive vitality. But gestures also appear in a perfectly voluntary way, when they are performed deliberately, in a controlled and reflective or even ‘studied’ and ‘composed’ way. At the first level, that of spontaneous gestures, they can often ‘betray’ the subject, which can let them transpire even in spite of the subject's conscious intention (‘a gesture unwillingly slips out’), in which case we would say that the ‘body language’ manifests precisely what the verbal language wanted to hide or disguise. In contrast, the second level, that of ‘reflective’ and ‘studied’ gestures, usually involves a staging that encodes messages, postures, or attitudes specific to particular situations. Here we can, of course, include the regulated gestures of oratory and rhetoric,Footnote 1 but also the gestural specificities of a given context, such as the constellation of gestures made by a politician at a rally, a teacher in front of students, a researcher at an academic conference, a TV reporter in front of the camera, etc. In such cases, we could say that it is, in fact, precisely the framework that prefigures the set of possible gestures in a given situation. Moreover, we could also say that unlike ‘spontaneous’ gestures, the constellation of ‘reflective-studied’ gestures can also be the visible indicator of a deliberate social positioning, because it pretends to exhibit a certain status, providing an effective mark of belonging to — or of aspiring to — a certain social class (for example, we speak of ‘bourgeois gestures’ or ‘aristocratic gestures’).Footnote 2 At the same time, gestures also reflect the hierarchical structure of a society (gestures of domination or gestures of obedience) or its inherent axiological scale — for example, when we distinguish between ‘vulgar’ or ‘trivial’ gestures and ‘high’ or ‘noble’ gestures.
But beyond the extremely complex sphere of everyday gestures, whether spontaneous or reflective, we can also deal with a very special staging of gestures, not only in the contexts of various professional practices (for example, the gestures belonging to the juridical or military spheres are not at all everyday gestures), but also in the horizon of the arts, in which case we can uncover the whole realm of ‘aesthetic’ gestures, whether what is at stake there is the gestures of the actor (in film, theater, or pantomime; see Dutsch, Reference Dutsch, Harrison and Liapis2013; Pavis, Reference Pavis1981), of the dancer (Lanzalone, Reference Lanzalone2000; Poesio, Reference Poesio2002; Schacher, Reference Schacher2010), of the musician (conductor or performer; see Gritten & King, Reference Gritten and King2011; Mazzola et al., Reference Mazzola, Guitart, Ho, Lubet, Mannone, Rahaim and Thalmann2017; Smart, Reference Smart2004; Wittry, Reference Wittry2014), or of the plastic artist (designer, painter, or even calligrapher; see Crowther, Reference Crowther2017; Deuber-Mankowsky, Reference Deuber-Mankowsky2017; Goldberg, Reference Goldberg and Tymieniecka2004, Reference Goldberg2009). We can suppose that in each of these forms of life, the gesturing (gesturality, gesticulation) has a specific charge and a distinct phenomenalization.
Moreover, as a counterpart to the sphere of everydayness, we can also discern a ceremonial sedimentation of gestures in the horizon of the sacred or solemnity. In the religious horizon, we are dealing with multiple types of ceremonies that involve magical gestures, ritual gestures, liturgical gestures, baptismal gestures, marital gestures, funeral gestures, etc., in various ways (Blanton, Reference Blanton2016; Corbeill, Reference Corbeill2004, pp. 12–40; Romberg, Reference Romberg2017). All these gestures have a strong symbolic charge that participates in the immanent space of the horizon in which they are inscribed, often being opaque, if not impenetrable, to an outsider. We are also dealing with ceremonial and formalized gestures in the sphere of political power, whether what is at stake is the codified manners or strict etiquette of the royal courts, the code of conduct of ambassadors, or the ‘solemn’ gestures bearing a political charge at the meeting of officials. Relevant in this context is not only the way in which within some contexts, certain ‘natural’ gestures interfere with and even infiltrate the codified etiquette of an officially solemn situation, but also the casual permeability of these categories, which are far from monolithic. For example, it is significant in this context how a daily gesture with a ceremonial touch, such as a greeting, transforms itself once entered in the political sphere, especially when dictatorial regimes are at stake (Fascist, Nazi, or Communist greetings, etc.; see Allert, Reference Allert2008; Fulbrook, Reference Fulbrook2009; Korff, Reference Korff1992; Winkler, Reference Winkler2009).
Given the complexities I have outlined, we can ask ourselves: from what exact point of departure should gesture be understood? How should this volatile topic be approached? In relation to what, exactly, can the ‘phenomenon of gesture’ be uncovered and described, decoded, or interpreted? If we assume a phenomenological point of view, several equally legitimate ways of investigation open before us: indeed, as previously mentioned, we can understand gesture either starting from the body and movement or from language and expressiveness, either starting from intersubjectivity and otherness or from emotion and affectivity. Let me sketch some of the possible ways in which the phenomenon of the gesture is given for analysis.
3. Gestures Between Bodily Movement and Expression
The gesture can be understood as starting from the body, and especially as starting from bodily movement. Movement is a primordial phenomenon of one's own embodiment, understood phenomenologically — in the footsteps of Edmund Husserl — as an articulation between Leib (the body lived from within) and Körper (the body perceived from the outside; see Husserl, Reference Husserl1952, pp. 143–161, Reference Husserl, Rojcewicz and Schuwer1989, pp. 151–169). The body is not only a perceptual organ, endowed with distinct but concordant sensory fields, but also an organ of movement, a differentiated ‘I can,’ because in it and through it we move: either we move as a whole, or we move certain parts of the body, feeling these movements as such, in a Sich-bewegen closely articulated with a Sich-fühlen (see Behnke, Reference Behnke, Nenon and Embree1996; Ciocan, Reference Ciocan2019; Hardy, Reference Hardy2018, pp. 20–23). Even from a strictly biological point of view, our bodies are in continuous change, in perpetual movement, from the heartbeat and the uninterrupted continuity of breathing to the pulsation of blood, without taking into account the infinitesimal movements (but no less real for the one who observes them in the naturalistic attitude) that take place inside each organ separately. The living body moves, life is movement, and absolute stillness is nothing but the seal of death (even if here bodily decomposition could also be understood as a form of movement). But from a phenomenological point of view are relevant only those movements that the I performs, either voluntarily or involuntarily, either consciously or unconsciously — therefore subjective movements, i.e., the movements in which the subject is actually engaged. Thus, the infra-subjective movements related to the organicity of our bodies are not pertinent for the phenomenology of gesture.
Gestures should therefore be circumscribed within the sphere of those movements in which the I is existentially involved. All these particular movements, in their diversity, essentially belong to a fundamental existential mobility, one that can be punctuated from time to time by gestures. Gestures, then, adhere to this constant mobility of our lives, just as in the flow of a dancer's continuous movement, each particular gesture finds its own place and pace.Footnote 3 Gestures must therefore be placed in the realm of subjective movements, characterizing a self that is present in relation to its world, to its fellows, and to itself, movements in which a subjective self is existentially invested. However, being present to oneself implies a certain mode of being awake, so that the nocturnal dimension of the I in the experience of sleep (and its specific movements) is also excluded from the phenomenal sphere of the gesture. Gesture would therefore be relevant for a ‘diurnal self,’ for an awake consciousness, for an active subjectivity in the world. But even in a sphere delimited in this way, not every bodily movement is necessarily a gesture. Consider the multiple movements that a driver makes while driving: s/he moves the steering wheel with both hands, presses the pedals with the feet, changes gears with the right hand, looks in the mirrors by turning the head slightly, watches the other traffic participants, thus moving the eyes while the head remains motionless. But none of these movements are really gestures. All these movements are ‘functional’ movements, and their functionality prevents them for being actual gestures.
We could assume from this that gestural movements must be in their essence ‘non-functional,’ i.e., movements that are not directly subordinated to a specific purpose that the very action of that movement achieves. Functional movements ‘do something’ in the sense that, in and through them, the subject performs a determinate action for a well-defined purpose (I press the accelerator in order to move faster, I press the brake in order to slow down), inscribed in the world of concern, in relation to equipment and instruments. Functional movements are mostly regular; they are repetitive and regulated in advance, and they have a certain routine of their own. Gestural movements should therefore not have these specific characteristics of functional movements. They should be movements that are not anchored in the practical world of equipment (consequently, in this precise sense, the specific movements of the carpenter or mechanic are ‘functional’ movements, not ‘gestural’ movements), but are rooted instead in the intersubjective world of encountering the other. Yet even if the driver mentioned above is talking to someone sitting in the car, the lip movements performed while speaking are not gestural movements; they too should be included in the category of functional movements, even if they are anchored in the common world of being-together. Repetitive movements occur in the intersubjective world as well: for example, the train ticket seller hands the tickets to the person who buys them with standard, routine movements, but we have no reason to assume that these repetitive and serial movements would effectively be ‘actual gestures.’ The gesture should be non-repetitive, evading routine. And, above all, it should not have a primary practical finality. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that there are also movements that lack such a practical aim, but at the same time are not at all gestures — for example, tics. If a person uncontrollably moves an eye, or trembles at a certain moment, or hisses, we cannot say that all these movements actually constitute gestures, because such movements are still related to the instinctive, pre-subjective or infra-subjective dimension of experience. Therefore, we could say that movements can be determined as gestures only insofar as they fall prey neither to automatisms and instincts, nor to functionalities, nor to routine, nor to repetitiveness, nor to any form of complete absorption in the sphere of practical goals.
It could nevertheless be said that ‘the same’ movement can be a gesture in one context and not in another. For example, when you rub the spot where a mosquito stung you, that movement of rubbing is not a gesture; in contrast, if you rub your chin ‘as when you have a doubt’ or when you are thinking deeply (for instance, when you receive a question for which you cannot find a quick response), this movement acquires the meaning of a gesture, insofar as it puts a surplus of meaning into play. Likewise, a simple functional movement (such as digging a hole) is not in itself a gesture, but if it is made in a ‘demonstrative’ sense, in order to show something, to prove something, or to signify something to another person (as in the inauguration of a construction site), it can enter the sphere of gesture; in this case, we have a ‘hybrid movement’ — because the main aim of a demonstrative gesture is ‘to show something,’ not ‘to do something’ — and what is at stake is once again a surplus of meaning.
The gesture therefore makes its appearance in the space of meaning, and is not fully engaged in the present of the action. A functional movement is completely anchored in the present, even if through its inherent teleology it is linked to a future that it wants to achieve, making it present. In contrast, gestures verge on the future, but do not seem to actually settle in the present. The gesture is not a finalized, complete movement, carried to the end, which actually fulfills its teleology and performs its entire project. The gesture is often given instead as a sketch, as a suggestion; it remains in the phase of prefiguration, and in this sense it has a rather discreet nature, somehow placed in an evasive area of existence, one that does not fully assume its reality. A ‘sketched gesture,’ or one that is ‘barely sketched’ — this is how many of our gestures are. Gestures therefore inhabit a space of the latency of our existence without fully biting the flesh of the present. They are not plenary movements that are definitively inscribed in being, but rather quasi-movements, in a kind of retreat or evasion in front of the real. It is as if the gesture, which starts from a pre-phenomenological field of the possible, hesitates fully to inscribe itself in presence and withdraws instead into the intermediate realm between the possible and the real. Thus, if we were to differentiate between movement as gesture and movement as action, we could say that the first is evasive, while the second is perfectly decided. The gestural movement takes shape on the horizon of elusiveness, while movement as action is firm and steady. The first is volatile and fleeting, while the second is as real as possible. The first is evanescent and moves in an aura of the possible, while the second is fully implanted in actuality. The first only prefigures, being essentially transient, while the second accomplishes and is something ontologically solid; the first just sketches, while the second categorically defines; the first belongs mainly to the order of meaning, while the second is already caught up in matter.
Even so, with this quasi-reality of the gesture, with this diffuse presence that withdraws from the real, denying its own presence, the gesture essentially engages the body as such. And the pressing question is this: how exactly does the gesture do this? How is the gesture phenomenalized in and through the body? Is the body as a whole the support of gestures, or do they mainly materialize from certain parts of the body? Both variants are possible, because there are gestures that totally engage the body, just as there are gestures that involve only a certain part of it. Dance, for instance, can be understood as a total and self-referential expressive gesture that engages the entire body: the body as a whole is at stake here, and not just a certain part of it. In contrast, we also have gestures that are phenomenalizing rather locally, engaging a certain part of our bodies. For example, most of our gestures are either hand gestures or head gestures. It is true that sometimes we suggest something to someone by simply raising our eyebrows, or by meaningfully closing our eyes, and sometimes we express our dissatisfaction by pursing our lips or by a frown, or we imply something by pointing our gaze in a more insistent way. We can, of course, ask ourselves what the structural relation is between the phenomenon of gesture as such and facial expressions. Is the facial expression simply subordinated to the phenomenon of the gesture, being a main constitutive moment belonging to it? Or are we dealing with distinct phenomena, even if they are perfectly coordinated? For example, a gesture of bewilderment or stupor is constituted by the concordance between a certain facial expression and a certain body position, in most cases of the hands. And if there is a possible discordance between the gesture and the facial expression, the meaning to be expressed may well be undermined.
Gestural movements should accordingly be understood as expressive bodily movements (Heinämaa, Reference Heinämaa2010; Luo, Reference Luoforthcoming). The body is not only an ‘I can’ of all kinds of movements, but is also an expressive substrate, a background from which the subject expresses meaning. But even if the gestures are basically expressive movements, this does not mean that every expression is in turn a gesture, for there are indeed expressions that are not gestures. We can make, for example, a difference between the ‘expression of perplexity’ that we read on someone's face and the ‘gesture of perplexity’ that someone actually performs, engaging the whole body. The expression ‘occurs,’ while the gesture ‘is made,’ is ‘effectively accomplished’ by involving the body, and it refers to the sphere of action, even if it is not actually an action. Likewise, an expression of sadness on someone's face is not, as such, a gesture. Because we notice an expression of astonishment or amazement on someone's face does not necessarily make that expression a gesture as such. The other person's face is essentially expressive, but it is often a non-gestural expression. And this is because the expression of the face is not fundamentally related to movement, or at least not to that mobility that the actual gestures engage, one that is close to doing and making.
Therefore, just as non-expressive movements are not gestures (for example, the functional, operational, or utilitarian movements integrated into the sphere of praxis), so too the expressions that do not actually engage any visible bodily mobility are not gestures in their turn. We thus have both ‘non-gestural movements’ and ‘non-gestural expressions.’ There are no ‘motionless gestures’ (absolutely unmoving), just as there are no ‘non-expressive gestures,’ because gestures are what they are only within the horizon of significance. However, we also usually place signs in the sphere of significance, in which case we should not avoid the question pertaining to the relation between ‘gesture’ and ‘sign.’ Of course, there are signs that have no primary connection with the body (traffic signs, letters, a knot made in a handkerchief as reminder of something, etc.), and they are not of interest for the question of gesture, but there are also signs that directly involve the body and its movement. People make signs to each other, and they do so by moving their bodies as a whole or in part. And the question is whether all such signs (the ones we do by engaging in bodily movement) are necessarily gestures, or whether only some of them fall into the realm of gesture. If I put my index finger to my lips and signal to someone next to me that that person must be silent, should this situation be understood primarily as a gesture or rather as a sign? Are not the standard movements made by policemen directing traffic, or by those directing the take-off or landing of planes on airport runways, signs rather than gestures, insofar as they are made possible by codification and standardization? And doesn't the gesture, in its originary meaning, precede this level of standardization and of repetitiveness? Aren't gestures genuine in the highest degree when they are performed pre-reflectively and ‘unconsciously,’ and precisely when we are not aware of them as such? Do they not have a charge of meaning (without being signs) mainly when they emerge in us without our knowledge, without our will, without our control, in the space of the spontaneous significance of our embodied being, a significance that is thus primarily expressed?
4. Gesture Irreducible to Expression: Heidegger
However, this way of thinking of the gesture as a specific sort of bodily movement in the horizon of expressiveness is not without difficulties. For example, in the Seminars held in Zollikon in May 1965, Heidegger surprisingly brings into play the phenomenon of gesture (Gebärde) in an attempt to clarify the problem of the body and its relationship with space, yet he firmly challenges the understanding of gesture starting from expression (Peters, Reference Peters2019, pp. 447–448). Given that his dialogue partners are largely medical doctors, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists (thus anchored in a naturalistic interpretation of the body as an organism), Heidegger begins by discussing a number of bodily phenomena — such as blushing (Erröten)Footnote 4 or grasping (Greifen), pain (Schmerz), or sadness (Trauer) — in order to put into question the dogmatic differentiation between ‘physical’ and ‘psychic,’ as well as the reductionist-naturalistic tendency to measure the phenomena belonging to embodiment by means of purely quantitative criteria (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger1987, pp. 105–107, Reference Heidegger, Mayr and Askay2001, pp. 80–82). The phenomenon of ‘movement’ (Bewegung) is also immediately called into question using the trivial example of picking up a watch and putting it back down on the table. And Heidegger wonders about the difference between the way the hand moves and the way the watch is moved — namely, the difference between the typical human movement (sich-bewegen, self-movement) and the purely spatial movement of a simple thing (bewegt-sein, being-moved). This is precisely where the concept of gesture comes in: Heidegger states that the movement of the hand should be understood as a gesture (Handbewegung als Gebärde), just as we usually place under the title of gesture the way a certain Dr. Knoepfel touches his forehead with his hand when thinking intensely about a difficult subject (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger1987, p. 115, Reference Heidegger, Mayr and Askay2001, pp. 88–89, Reference Heidegger2018, p. 785). The audience protests, however, because these two types of movement are essentially different, and if we can consider ‘touching the forehead’ as a gesture because it expresses something and makes us think about something, we could not say the same about how the hand picks up a watch from the table.
Heidegger therefore faces a situation similar to the one mentioned above: namely, the assimilation of the notion of gesture exclusively to the sphere of expressive movements, thereby understanding gesture as expression (Gebärde als Ausdruck; Heidegger, Reference Heidegger1987, p. 116, Reference Heidegger, Mayr and Askay2001, p. 89, Reference Heidegger2018, p. 786), in which case the other movements could not be considered gestures. However, Heidegger insists that ‘gesture’ should not be understood in terms of expressiveness, precisely because this equivalence is already an interpretation — in this case, one that places the entire issue on the path of the relation between an ‘outside’ (Aus-, ex-) and something that we would assume to be ‘behind’ the gesture (hinter) and in a certain sense ‘inside,’ something that acts by quasi-causally generating or producing what is expressed. Nevertheless, if we read between the lines, we realize that with this option we would already be caught in the trap of the philosophy of interiority, understanding the subject as encapsulated in its immanent sphere and coming out of it from time to time, thus perpetuating the subject-object dualism and the principle of causality, that is, precisely the structure of the naturalistic attitude that the phenomenological view should fundamentally overcome.
To approach gesture phenomenologically would therefore involve understanding it beyond the traditional differences between body and soul, somatic and psychic, subject and object, inside and outside — and at the same time, without perpetuating in any way the structures of causality, even if they are veiled. To understand gesture phenomenologically would be to let it show itself starting from itself, thus to understand it only in terms of this self-manifestation. Now Heidegger's thesis is surprising in that he wants to subsume the whole embodied movement of human beings in the category of gesture: each movement of one's body, he says, is part of this dynamic of gesture and must be understood as such (“Jede Bewegung meines Leibes geht als eine Gebärde,” Heidegger, Reference Heidegger1987, p. 118, Reference Heidegger, Mayr and Askay2001, p. 91, Reference Heidegger2018, p. 787–788). The gesture, he says, characterizes the whole of human comportment (Sich-Betragen des Menschen) as being-in-the-world essentially determined by the ‘bodying forth of the body’ (Leiben des Leibes).
In order to highlight this essential, integrative, and unifying meaning of gesture, Heidegger also discusses the etymology of the term ‘Gebärde,’ which, as he points out, refers in the first instance to the root bären and its connection with tragen (to carry, to bear), bringen (to bring) and gebären (to give birth). Therefore, gestures ‘carry’ the existential meanings of our being in the world, bringing these meanings to the fore in our lives. At the same time, Heidegger emphasizes the sense of ‘gathering-together’ that the particle Ge- involves — a summative or integrative meaning on the model of the mountain range (Ge-birge), which is a gathering of mountains (Bergen). And he insists that we should also understand gesture (Gebärde) in the same sense: as a unification, as a gathering-together or a bringing-together (Versammlung) of our comportments in the world, of our existential behaviours. It is in this sense — Heidegger concludes his short excursus about gesture in the Zollikon Seminars — that if we understand gesture by taking what the human is in one's own being as our point of departure, we should determine it as ein gesammeltes Sich-Betragen (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger1987, p. 118, Reference Heidegger, Mayr and Askay2001, p. 90, Reference Heidegger2018, p. 787), so that the human's entire comportment is brought-together or gathered-together.Footnote 5
This idea is anticipated in the already-mentioned “Dialogue on language,” written a decade earlier, in 1953–1954, when the Japanese interlocutor (J.), explaining the peculiar Nō gesture he just performed in front of Heidegger, suggests that “the gesture subsists less in the visible movement of the hand [in der sichtbaren Bewegung der Hand], nor primarily in the stance of the body [nicht zuerst in der Körperhaltung]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, p. 18, Reference Heidegger1985, p. 102). This suggestion gives then the occasion for the Inquirer (I.), that is Heidegger himself, to articulate the idea of Gebärde (gesture) with a network of terms evolving around the root ‘tragen’ (to bear), such as Tragende, Zutrag, and Entgegentragen, that the translation can only approximate: “I.: Gesture is the gathering of a bearing [Versammlung eines Tragens]. […] Because what truly bears [das eigentlich Tragende], only bears itself toward us … [uns sich erst zu-trägt …] J.: … though we bear only our share to our encounter [entgegentragen]. I.: While that which bears itself toward us [was sich uns zuträgt] has already borne our counterbearing into the gift it bears for us [unser Entgegentragen schon in den Zutrag eingetragen hat]. J.: Thus you call bearing or gesture [Gebärde]: the gathering which originarily unites within itself [die in sich ursprünglich einige Versammlung] what we bear to it and what it bears to us [Entgegentragen und Zutrag]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, pp. 18–19, Reference Heidegger1985, p. 102). However, the unity of this gathering (Versammlung) does not arise subsequently from a synthesis of these two intertwined movements, since “all bearing, in giving and encounter [alles Tragen, Zutrag und Entgegentragen], spring first and only from the gathering [erst und nur der Versammlung entquillt]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hertz1982, p. 19, Reference Heidegger1985, p. 103).
A similar etymological exploration of the term ‘Gebärde’ can be found in an even earlier conference entitled Die Sprache / Language, that Heidegger held in 1950 and 1951. However, here the stake is not a situation related to embodiment, but a more originary relation between the thing (das Ding) and the world (die Welt). It is as if the idea of gesture — already disconnected from the notion of expression, as we have seen above — is furtherly disconnected from the realm of embodiment as such. The term ‘Gebärde’ hints here toward a post-metaphysical understanding of the interminglement of thing and world. Indeed, in order to indicate the relation of mutual belongingness between thing and world, Heidegger uses the term ‘Gebärde,’ not only as a noun, but also as a verb (gebärden). Here, the notion of Gebärde is thought in the already-mentioned constellation of carrying, bearing, bringing forth, and giving birth, in order to suggest that the thing ‘bears’ and ‘gestate’ the world: “By thinging, things carry out world [Die Dinge tragen, indem sie dingen, Welt aus]. Our old language calls such carrying bern, bären — Old High German beran — to bear; hence the words gebären, to carry, gestate, give birth, and Gebärde, bearing, gesture. Thinging, things are things [Dingend sind die Dinge Dinge]. Thinging, they gesture — gestate — world [Dingend gebärden sie Welt]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hofstadter1975, p. 200). The same idea is reiterated several times: “Things bear world [Die Dinge gebärden Welt]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hofstadter1975, p. 202); “The dif-ference for world and thing disclosingly appropriates things into bearing a world [Der Unter-Schied für Welt und Ding ereignet Dinge in das Gebärden von Welt]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hofstadter1975, pp. 202–203); “the bearing of things [die Gebärde der Dinge]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hofstadter1975, p. 204); “the world's fourfold fulfills the bearing of the thing [das Geviert der Welt die Gebärde des Dinges erfüllt]” (Heidegger, Reference Heidegger and Hofstadter1975, p. 206). We see that, finally, Heidegger's use of the term ‘gesture’ is not restricted to bodily phenomena.Footnote 6
5. Gesture and Affectivity: Flusser
A similar extension or enlargement of the notion of ‘gesture’ is found in Flusser's stimulating book on gestures (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, Reference Flusser2014b), explicitly presented under the umbrella of phenomenology.Footnote 7 It is true that Flusser also begins with the common opinion of considering gestures as “bodily movements,” referring in this case to those movements motivated by an expressive intention (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 7, 2014a, p. 1: “Bewegungen des Körpers, die eine Intention ausdrücken”). However, he has no reservations about the concept of expression (Ausdrück) as we saw above in Heidegger, but rather about the idea of ‘intention,’ which is to him a “questionable” or “uncertain” concept (zweifelhafter Begriff; Flusser, 1994, p. 7, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 1; the English translation renders zweifelhaft as “unstable”). Therefore, in order to distinguish between those bodily movements that are gestures and movements that are not gestures, Flusser introduces in the first instance an unexpected negative criterion: the possibility of “not having a satisfactory causal explanation” for the movement. More exactly, he says that although causal explanations are necessary for understanding gestures, they are not sufficient for grasping their specificity. This specificity of gestures (die Spezifizität der Gesten) can only be understood if we approach them through a path that is essentially distinct from that of purely causal explanations. Thus, even if for a certain bodily movement we can find a fully satisfactory causal explanation, that precise movement need not be considered a gesture. Conversely, a movement of the body “for which there is no satisfactory causal explanation [für die es keine zufriedenstellende kausale Erklärung gibt]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 8, Reference Flusser2014b, p. 2) could nevertheless enter as such into the sphere of gesture. In any case, unlike Heidegger — who, as we have seen, places all human movements in the category of the concept of gesture — Flusser reserves this term only for a specific kind of movement.
The gesture is then determined as a “symbolic movement [symbolische Bewegung]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 10, Reference Flusser2014b, p. 3), and is thereby situated in the space of meaning: the gesture “depicts something [etwas darstellt] because it is a matter of sense-bestowal [Sinngebung].”Footnote 8 Such a movement anchored in the horizon of meaning cannot be determined in a purely explanatory way, but must be primarily approached interpretatively. And this is because the “core of the phenomenon” (Kern des Phänomens; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 219, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 163: “the heart of the phenomenon”) of gesture defined as movement relates to the fact that “it expresses a freedom [durch die sich eine Freiheit ausdrückt],” thus being “the expression of an interiority [Ausdruck einer Innerlichkeit]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 220, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 163: “it expresses a subjectivity”). But this freedom, as Flusser mentions at one point, displays “the strange capacity to hide itself in the gesture that expresses it [die seltsame Fähigkeit, sich in der Geste, die sie ausdrückt, zu verhüllen]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 220, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 164). Therefore, the gesture not only reveals and discloses (enthüllen), but also hides and disguises (verhüllen).
Flusser's proximity to Heidegger can certainly be detected here, but is especially accentuated when he brings into play the problem of affectivity, which as I mentioned earlier is, of course, fully relevant to the phenomenology of gestures. Indeed, in the text that opens the German version of the Gestures,Footnote 9 Flusser understands this phenomenon in terms of the correlation (but also the tension) between two terms usually connected to the phenomenology of emotions: Gestimmtheit and Stimmungen. Here too we can detect a certain influence of Heideggerian terminology related to problem of Befindlichkeit in Being and Time,Footnote 10 an influence that can be noticed in other contexts as well. We are therefore dealing with a polarity between the singular form of Gestimmtheit (affect)Footnote 11 and the factual plural dimension of some Stimmungen (moods).Footnote 12 Even if Flusser leaves the term ‘Gestimmtheit’ initially indeterminate, he develops his reflections on gesture by proceeding precisely from this polarity. Thus, at several points, he emphasizes the relation between these two poles of our emotional lives, saying that affect (Gestimmtheit) is “the symbolic depiction of moods through gestures,”Footnote 13 that it is “the way Stimmungen (moods) are expressed through gestures” and “transposed into gestures.”Footnote 14 Affect (Gestimmtheit) is thus “mood transformed into gesture.”Footnote 15 Accordingly, between mood (Stimmung) and affect (Gestimmtheit), we are dealing with a transition, with a leap. And this leap is mediated by gestures: the gesture takes over the simple mood (Stimmung), and — in this very symbolic gestural depiction that the gesture performs in this ex-pression — transforms and transposes it into ‘affect’ (Gestimmtheit). Thus, here we have sketched the difference between a ‘pre-gestural’ dimension of affectivity (the somewhat brute plurality of spontaneous moods, Stimmungen) and a proper gestural dimension of affectivity, one that is ‘refined’ and ‘elaborated’ by gesture (affect, Gestimmtheit). Through the verbs Flusser puts into play — darstellen, umsetzen, verwandeln, ausdrücken — he thus suggests that Gestimmtheit is a ‘structurally modified’ Stimmung arrived at through gesture and gestural mediation.
The relevance of these differentiations — which can give the misleading appearance of a simple terminological preciousness — can be grasped in the next step of the analysis, in which Flusser involves the experience of art. Starting from the obvious fact that the mood expressed by a gesture is something completely different from rationality, he emphasizes the idea that it is precisely artistic experience that is singularized as being totally “other than reason” (Flusser, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 5). From here, Flusser advances the suggestion that art and affectivity intertwineFootnote 16 and that the work of art can be understood as a “frozen gesture [erstarrte Geste].”Footnote 17 This idea allows him to deepen the polarity between Gestimmtheit and Stimmungen still further. For when we are dealing with such a gesture, which — as we have seen — is the “depicting of a mood” (Darstellen einer Stimmung), leading to its transfiguration into an affect (Gestimmtheit), we are confronted with questions of an aesthetic nature, but not of an ethical or epistemological nature. In other words, we would not ask whether the mood that passes through the gesture (thus becoming affect) is ‘lying’ (which would be pertaining to ethics), nor whether it is ‘in line with the truth’ (which would be related to epistemology), but whether the gesture as such ‘touches’ the observer. In other words, what interests us at this level is precisely the ‘impact’ or ‘effect’ of the gesture (Wirkung der Geste; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 14, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 6). Therefore, affect in that particular sense of Gestimmtheit — the emotional sense mediated by gestures — first raises aesthetic problems (without raising ethical or epistemological problems), while the concrete moods belonging to the affective life of the individual can raise — in their pre-gestural immediacy — ethical and epistemological (but not aesthetic) problems. In this way, we can more clearly understand the elliptical conclusion that Flusser draws regarding the relation between affectivity and gestures, saying: “Affect [Gestimmtheit] releases the moods [löst die Stimmungen aus] from their original contexts and allows them to become formal (aesthetic) [läßt sie ästhetisch (formal) werden] — to take the form of gestures. They become ‘artificial’ [‘künstlich’]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 14, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 6).
The fact that affect is understood as an ‘artificial mood’ (künstliche, artifizielle Stimmung) is far from being a mere banality, since Flusser insists that, insofar as affect ‘artificializes’ the mood, it is one of the ways in which human beings give “meaning and significance [Sinn und Bedeutung]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 15, Reference Flusser and Roth2014a, p. 6) to the world. In this way, through gesture, human beings leave behind the ‘natural context’ of simple moods and enters the ‘cultural context’ of affect, giving it ‘a symbolic expression.’ And it is through this artificialization of affects that human beings endow the world with meaning. In other words: “Affect [Gestimmtheit] ‘spiritualizes’ [‘vergeistigt’] the moods [Stimmungen], formalizing them into symbolic gestures [durch deren Formalisierung in symbolischen Gesten]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 15, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 7: “affect ‘intellectualizes’ states of mind”). In this way, the constitutive difference between the ‘primary affectivity’ that constantly infuses factual life (marked by Stimmungen) and the ‘secondary affectivity’ specific to art (indicated by Gestimmtheit) becomes clearer, the latter manifesting itself essentially through gestures, which effect an ‘artificialization’ of the former. This is why such ‘secondary affectivity’ cannot be scrutinized with epistemological criteria such as the relation between truth and error (Wahrheit und Irrtum), or with ethical criteria such as the relation between truth and lie (Wahrheit und Lüge), but with aesthetic criteria such as the relation between truth and kitsch. When affect (the transfigured mood) and gesture are at stake, however, truth is understood as ‘authenticity’ (Echtheit; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 16, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 7). The concept of truth therefore appears differently in each of these three areas (epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic), and this is due to the fact that, at the root of these distinct meanings, we have a common sense, that of ‘honesty’ (Redlichkeit; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 16, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 7). Consequently, we can distinguish, says Flusser, between — on the one hand — gestures that, being “ethically and epistemologically honest,” are still “aesthetically dishonest,” and — on the other hand — gestures that are “aesthetically honest,” but not ethically or epistemically honest.
We have seen that when he brings into play the dimension of affectivity and its translation from the spontaneous level of moods lived on the natural level of immediate life to the elaborate level of the cultural realm, Flusser refers in the first instance to those gestures that we understand as intersubjectively shared emotional expressions pertaining to our bodily movements. Surprisingly, however, he does not stick to this commonly accepted realm of actual gestures, but in other essays included in the book, he analyzes a multitude of activities, practices, and situations that he also places under the title of ‘gestures’: ‘writing,’ ‘speaking,’ ‘making,’ ‘loving,’ ‘destroying,’ ‘painting,’ ‘photographing,’ ‘filming,’ ‘turning a mask around,’ ‘planting,’ ‘shaving,’ ‘listening to music,’ ‘smoking a pipe,’ ‘telephoning,’ ‘searching,’ etc. Thus, although he takes the idea of ‘actual gesture’ (the expressive, intersubjective, and affective movement) as his point of departure, Flusser finally proposes an extremely broad concept of gesture, in the sense that it corresponds to something like ‘practice,’ ‘way of life,’ ‘type of action,’ ‘mode of activity,’ or ‘kind of doing’ — all of which, of course, involve an embodied subject.
The fact that, in his massive broadening of the concept of gesture, Flusser favours the meaning of ‘doing’ and ‘making’ is perfectly consistent with the terminological option under which he conducts his investigation. For, unlike Heidegger, who reflects on the issue of gesture starting from the term ‘Gebärde,’ Flusser constantly employs the alternative notion of ‘Geste,’ which is obviously introduced in German from the Latin lineage. And the fact that the Latin root is here tacitly privileged puts its mark on the type of semantic extension that Flusser carries out regarding the term ‘gesture’: Flusser's general usage can be put in etymological connection not so much with the meaning of ‘gestus’ (as attitude and bodily movement), but with the line of gestae (deeds, acts, actions, feats, achievements; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 224, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 166), both based on gero / gerere (to fulfill, to execute, to do). Therefore, for Flusser, the bodily-expressive-affective-intersubjective significance of the concept of gesture (in the proper sense of gestures and gesticulation) is subsumed under the dimension related to deed and act.
The motivation for this extension lies in Flusser's goal of developing an ambitious “general theory of gestures,” outlined in the last section of the book (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 217–236, Reference Flusser2014a, pp. 161–176), in which he proposes several classifications of gestures. The first classification concerns the way corporeality is engaged, because as he says, the gestures in which the body itself moves must be clearly differentiated from the gestures in which what is moved is “something else connected to a human body,” i.e., a tool. Within each category, other additional differences are possible: not only should we distinguish, for example, between the gesture of moving the fingers and the gesture of moving the pen, but we should also differentiate between the meaning of the gesture of waving with the hand (Geste des Winkens mit der Hand) and the gesture of waving with a finger (Geste des Winkens mit dem Finger; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 222–223, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 165).
Another classification is made according to the orientation or directionality of the gestures, or more precisely, in terms of what they aim at according to their own intentionality: sich richten.Footnote 18 In this way, four categories of gestures are sketched. First, we have those gestures that are “directed at others” (Gesten, die sich an andere richten; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 224, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 166) and are therefore essentially intersubjective or alterological gestures, gestures that Flusser calls “strictly communicative gestures [kommunikative Gesten im strengen Sinn]” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 224, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 166) and that we would call ‘actual’ gestures (or gestures per se) in everyday life. In this context, he says, we should distinguish between ‘what’ the gesture conveys and ‘how’ it does so, and we must accordingly differentiate between deciphering the expression (Entziffern des Ausdrucks) and deciphering the message (Entziffern der Botschaft), each with its own aim, its own method, and its own code. In this category, a distinction should therefore be made between “gestures in which the expression dominates” and “gestures in which the message dominates” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 225, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 167). Second, we have gestures directed toward a material (Gesten, die sich auf ein Material richten), which Flusser calls ‘gestures of work’ Gesten der Arbeit). This is the first major extension of the ‘usual’ concept of gesture, and includes any operation performed for a purpose, often by means of a tool. Thus, here we have effective movements, actual activities directed toward an operational finality (what we called ‘functional movements’).Footnote 19 Flusser says that, even in the sphere of these Arbeitsgesten, we should distinguish between genuine or authentic (echte) gestures, which are really the expression of a freedom, and pseudo-gestures (Pseudogesten), in which the work as such is alienating (entfremdend; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 226–227, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 168). A third category is that of gestures that are directed at nothing (Gesten, die sich an nichts richten), which Flusser — invoking the acte gratuit of André Gide and the theory of the absurd — determines as being interessefrei (free of any determined interest) or zweckfrei (aimless), a category in which he places completely heterogeneous situations such as “children's spontaneous jumping,” “action painting,” and “the play of pure logic in abstract symbols” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, p. 228, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 169).Footnote 20 Finally, the fourth category is that of gestures that are “directed (back) at themselves” — Gesten, die sich auf sich selber (zurück) richten — gestures that Flusser characterizes as ‘ritual.’ And here as well, he says, we should differentiate between pseudo-ritual gestures (such as magic ones, which are always aimed at a goal) and “truly ritual” gestures, which are “radically anti-magical” in that they are characterized by an essential “aimlessness” or “purposelessness” (Zweckfreiheit; Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 228–229, Reference Flusser2014a, pp. 169–170), which somehow places them in the proximity of the gestures “free of any determined interest” from the third category. However, the gestures belonging to this last category (the ritual ones) are characterized by an essential circularity, visible in their being closed in on themselves, a characteristic that places them in contrast with the “open and linear” (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 228–224, Reference Flusser2014a, p. 166) specificity of the first three categories of gestures (the communicative ones, the operational ones, and those free from any interest).
These delimitations, Flusser warns us, must not be understood rigidly, because a concrete gestural phenomenon is situated at the intersection of all these categories. Thus, the four categories indicated above (communicative, operative, interest-free, ritual) can equally constitute, although in differentiated degrees, the concreteness of a real gestural phenomenon. In light of the theoretical sketch that Flusser proposes, we could therefore examine the communicative, operative, interest-free, or ritual charge (or weight) of each specific gesture.Footnote 21 For example, in an attempt to contrast his own “general theory of gestures” and the “philosophy of history,”Footnote 22 Flusser discusses, by way of an illustration, the baroque, or more precisely, the “baroque gesture,” which should be understood — in the light of the above classification — at the convergence between a baroque work gesture, a baroque style of communication, a baroque ritual, and a baroque absurdity. But the “baroque gesture” — characterized by a specific ritual circularity — should not be limited to the historical epoch in which it flourished, says Flusser, because we could explore baroque microelements in contemporary phenomena, whether related to communication, work, or purposelessness. It is true that here the illustrations that Flusser provides (for example, “movements of the spoons of people eating soup,” “freeway bridges,” “gestures in the nursery,” etc.) produce a certain perplexity and make us wonder if the author is actually taunting his all-too-serious readers. Here is, to conclude, the whole passage:
For the general theory of gestures, the “baroque gesture” is above all a specific aspect of ritual gesture as it can be observed in everyday life. It has a circular specificity, for it tends to distort a circular movement toward a parabola or ellipse. The theory of gestures might examine this baroque specificity in the movements of the spoons of people eating soup, so as to move from this and many other similar microelements to look for structurally analogue expressions in other forms of gesture, for example, for baroque elements in communicative gestures (newspaper articles, television programs, etc.), in gestures of work (freeway bridges, pipe forms, philosophical theses, etc.), and in non-interested gestures (e.g., gestures in the nursery, outbursts of anger, or among audiences for a football game or a television program). Having made an inventory of gestures with a baroque character, the theory could research materials most and least appropriate to them. It could then refer to plaster or arithmetic equations as “baroque materials” and window glass or Morse code as “antibaroque materials.” The theory could go on to draw a picture of the freedom expressed in the baroque gesture: a freedom that tends to be in the world ritually and that expresses this tendency in all its actions. (Flusser, Reference Flusser1994, pp. 232–233, Reference Flusser2014a, pp. 172–173; translation partially modified)
6. Conclusion
With Heidegger and Flusser, we have discovered two distinct phenomenological voices that carry out two equally substantial enlargements of the concept of gesture, although in different directions and with different purposes. On the one hand, we have seen that Heidegger extends the concept of gesture in order to cover all movements that human beings can make, but contests the pertinence of the notion of ‘expression’ for understanding this phenomenon. This ‘holistic view,’ which expands the notion of gesture so that it corresponds to our entire existential mobility, is also connected with the idea of ‘gathering-together,’ which is uncovered by Heidegger by means of an exploration of the etymological potentiality of the German word ‘Gebärde.’ It is obvious that Heidegger's main aim is not at all to clarify phenomenologically the structure of actual gestures, but to think, in a unitary way, the originary meaning of specifically human bodily movement, in contrast to the simple spatial movement of a thing. The three vectors — constant in Heideggerian thought — are here in place in order to define the essence of a phenomenon: unity, totality, and originarity. It is in terms of these three vectors that Heidegger fundamentally re-signifies the notion of gesture by essentializing its meaning as the gathering-together of our entire comportment. We can, however, ask if the specificity of concrete proper gestures, in their peculiar phenomenality, can still be captured as such in light of Heidegger's suggestions. Indeed, the total broadening that Heidegger performs on the term ‘gesture’ — employed, as we have seen, even in a non-bodily realm, in order to indicate a post-metaphysical understanding of the relation of thing and word — cannot readily be correlated with particularly determined gestures in their diversity. How can what we concretely call ‘gesture in the proper sense’ (gesture per se, or gesture ‘as such’) be described in light of this Heideggerian concept, which indicates instead the essence of human bodily mobility?
On the other hand, we have seen that, although Flusser begins with a clear-cut sense of gestures (as expressive, symbolic bodily movements, irreducible to causal explanations, intersubjectively anchored and emotionally determined), he comes to integrate under the notion of gesture a multitude of human practices that current speech is reluctant to label as ‘gestures.’ Indeed, instead of saying the ‘gesture’ of shaving or the ‘gesture’ of planting, one could equally well say the ‘practice’ of shaving and the ‘practice’ of planting. And instead of talking about the ‘gesture of writing’ or the ‘gesture of destroying,’ one might as well invoke the ‘act of writing’ or the ‘act of destruction,’ just as instead of referring to ‘the gesture of photographing’ or the ‘gesture of telephoning,’ one can just as well evoke the ‘fact’ of taking a picture or making a phone call, since those practices that Flusser calls ‘gestures’ are basically all about ‘doing’ — ‘accomplishing,’ ‘achieving,’ ‘carrying out’ — (since ‘fact’ comes from facere). However, doesn't gesture as such, in its primary concrete meaning, simply vanish among all these human practices? Indeed, the most obvious risk is that, through this extension, the notion of gesture becomes even more diffuse, more confusing, more indeterminate than it already is — and the modes of appearance of gestures are already excessively plural, involving an exuberant phenomenality that gestural studies strive to circumscribe in a detailed manner. The dilemma of the phenomenological approach to gesture consists precisely in this continuous oscillation between the plural concreteness of gestural appearances, in their unlimited and inexhaustible ramifications, and the irrepressible temptation to search for an originary and unitary layer that allows them to hold together. But isn't it precisely this constant tendency to seek the originary that prevents phenomenology from approaching gestural phenomena in a more concrete way, without immediately losing sight of them? Perhaps an applied micro-phenomenology, or a minimalist phenomenology, would be more suitable for descriptively uncovering these evanescent phenomena we call ‘gestures.’
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI (PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0479).
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