In groups you will choose one specific gesture out of the ones suggested:
Trace its lineage paying attention to:
    the different contexts that is being performed in (digital spaces, physical, together with others,)
      the bodies that perform it
    its evolution 
      & your thinking process (mental derive) 

Question to investigate:
1. Where & when does this gesture appear?
2. What is the history of this gesture? Did it evolve through time?
3. What is the cultural meaning of this gesture? Did it evolve through time?
4. In which other contexts does this gesture appear?
5. How did the gesture travel from one body to another one (becoming contagious)?
6. How does the gesture have different meanings depending on the body that perform it (ages, body ability, gender, race, class) ?

CREDIT YOUR SOURCES!
Use hyperlinks to link to original content or add the reference on the caption.

THINK OF DIGITAL DERIVE!
Does the design require you to follow a specific choreography?
How can you use it to your advantage?

PROPOSED GESTURES:
Covering nudity
Whispering to someone's ear, gossip
Displaying products on a supermarket shelves.
Kissing hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjGK3VOzrkc

Question to investigate:
1. Where & when does this gesture appear?
2. What is the history of this gesture? Did it evolve through time?
3. What is the cultural meaning of this gesture? Did it evolve through time?
4. In which other contexts does this gesture appear?
5. How did the gesture travel from one body to another one (becoming contagious)?
6. How does the gesture have different meanings depending on the body that perform it?

PHASE 2

Combining Gestures

Everybody is naked or nobody is

Alternative idea's

“If the same is expected from everyone, then everyone should be treated the same”

Social practice theory

1. We choose to stick to the gesture ‘covering nudity’. We decided to choose it, because it seemed to be the one that we relate to the most. One of the first things we realized while trying to decontextualize it was that the spread of the gesture began as a manner of protection, comfort or simply an existential need, which was in prehistoric times. It was later when first civilisations appeared when this gesture became a social norm for showing financial class or also cultural belonging. As time progressed, issued around it started to evolve more and more. By the 10th century Christianity consider nudity belonging to heresy. Later nudity was perceived as explicit behaviour until the time modern social issues appear. Nowadays covering nudity is one of the things with is so integrated into most cultures that it goes without saying. One of the main issues that arise around covering nudity is gender roles/norms.

Example: It is summer inside a public park. Why can boys stay without tops, but women cannot? Why is nudity interpreted in a different manner between the two sexes?
We then thought of so many more examples where sexism and gender roles play a major role in defining our unconscious social interaction with the people and world around us.

2. We thought of a few different ways we can elaborate in the search for a resolution of the mentioned issues that arise. We tried creating a speculation about a future where these issues do not exist. We were guided by one quote:

‘’If the same is expected from everyone, then everyone should be treated the same’’.


We elaborated on this quote by imagining a future where nudity is as normal as covering it. The imagined a future where nudity was allowed, since in the Netherlands and many other countries with the same or similar political views, nudity is publicly prohibited. We looked forward speculating that in a futuristic society, in which nudity will be tolerated in public spaces and institutions.

Example: In 2016 a gallery in Vienna made an exhibition depicting male nudity through history and nudists were welcomed to this exhibition. It became viral and it gave an example of there is not a need of nudity to be awkward or uncomfortable.

By normalising nudity, we thought that a society will start to tolerise it and therefore embrace it as a common cultural phenomenon. Yet we thought that sexism would still be hard to dissolve. Therefore, we came up with an alternative proposal for the same futuristic society where instead of finding a way to exclude sexist behaviour, we would discretely ‘hide’ it. We imagined a garment, specifically – pair of glasses, which would be used to visually eliminate the body parts a certain person finds problematic. This pair of glasses would serve the nudist communities inside public areas. They are meant to interact with the brain of the one wearing them in a way that they would not anymore see the problematic body part that they would usually see without them. Such an invention would help prevent gender roles implementation inside public spaces, by creating safe spaces for communities that have normalised nudity. In this way the two conflicting communities would still live together, but separated, through a pair of glasses.

Example: A man walks in a public space and suddenly sees a woman breastfeeding. Many people would find this problematic just because of their own disturbed comfort. So instead of the man creating a problem about the breastfeeding woman, he would be offered, or he will already own a pair or our anti-sexist glasses and once having them on, he would not be able to see the breast of the woman and this would make his day as regular as he wants it, while the woman will keep breastfeeding.

3. This garment is hard to be defined as a gesture, but more as an accessory. No matter whether in the future most societies will find gentleman behaviour sexist or subtle, owning a pair of the glasses can be a gentleman act, since you would be treating more people equally. As a product it can be commercialised and spread into the world easily.