Circumscribe

2022 | Video | 8:22 min | UHD | 16:9 | stereo sound




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.











Installation views


Dissecting Globality, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, DE ©Laila Schubert




Dissecting Globality, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, DE ©Laila Schubert




Dissecting Globality, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, DE ©Laila Schubert




c/o in other people's hands, Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin, DE ©Kim Bode







Video stills