the hand

I am interested in the idea of designing without an object, and the potential of the hand and the expression it has of ones self.



From my context report I wrote;

"The references below form a small project.

At the German Museum of Architecture, the “Design Without an Object” exhibition included Kunstflug’s “electronic hand calculator”.

I enjoy the idea of designing without an object as a way of understanding the human aspect of design. It is fantastic how we can adjust ourselves to a particular way of using objects, and I would like to portray that in an animation of the hand, as a small project.

“The hand does not leave informed things, as it were, alone but that it continues to wave them about until the information contained within them is worn down. The hand consumes culture and transforms it into waste”. I would like to create a more humanistic approach by looking at the body’s way of dealing with objects.

“We have certain knowledge of these intimate, spaces, classifications that appear to live partly in our hands”".

There are also some key quotes from the 'hand signals' book, by Ikon gallery. These i have found support my ideas about the hand.

"Hands were often of greater significance than faces: specific gestures and movements told a story within an understood religious narrative" (pg 12)

"Tony Bevan: It is probably no accident that the hand is linked to the insight of the person: the hand seen as a mirror for parts of the mind". (pg 26)

"Images of hands can be so powerful in expression, obviously due to a generous axis of movement and a versatile set of independent fingers" (pg 34)

"How the position of hands in relation to the body (whether making a deliberate gesture or not) imply different emotional and intellectual states". (pg 9)

"Hands are both signs of self and signals which indicate content- and so the possibility of interpretation" (pg 11)

"Hands are crucial to everyday communication, expressing love, friendship, hate, surprise; acting as didactic tools (pointing things out) or, as with Kennedy and Bush, indicating acknowledgment of an audience (whether real or - through the media - invisible). (pg 11)

"Something has been created by 'the artist's hand' reveals not only the physical source of production and creativity, but also the uniqueness- and so authenticity and value- of the object". (pg 18)