Gesten, Überlegungen zu einer flüchtigen Sprache

A short glance or a long one, a turning hand, a finger pointing forwards or withdrawing: the movements we perform during a conversation are countless, and the meanings that small gestures can have are no less numerous. Unlike language, this meaning is hardly codified and difficult to define – and yet a conversation cannot do without them. Gestures remind us that a person not only has a body, but is a body. Gestures are bodies in articulation, and this goes far beyond the possibilities of spoken language. Gestures begin where words end, they open up a path to the barely utterable. Whether in everyday life, politics or art: in its gestures, the body takes to the stage, unfolding a meaning that language knows nothing about.