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Describe the work discussed in the article and the unique challenges – as well as the unique gifts- that come with attempting to archive personal movements?

About the Article

The article “Turning the Gestures of Everyday Life Into Art – The New York Times” is about Motus Mori’s a project by Katja Heitmann that mimics people’s everyday movements and actions. During this project they collected 1,023 movements from different people, these movements were actions such as walking, sleeping, standing and fidgeting. The dancers that were mimicking these moments learnt through connection and interactions with each person and their bodies became the archive of these movements.

Discuss one or two examples of movements in the article – what strikes you about them?

One example of movement from the article is when Mahat Arab cracks his knuckles. What strikes me is that this moment is a very small moment only involving the hands yet it is a gesture that most people relate with anxiety or nervousness. Usually this movement happens without the person even releasing they are doing it and I find that alone intriguing because it shows how our emotions influence our physical habits.

Another example I noticed was Ranti Than hiding his thumbs. This moment similar to the last show how our emotions influence our physical habits. This moment show that different people also have different and unique ways of expressing their bodies and their emotions.

Describe the habitual movements/unconscious gestures, tics etc. of 3 people you know well. How do individual body parts move, and how does the whole body interact? What about facial expressions, and emotional valence of the movement? How does body type inform the movement? What do these examples of small movements mean and imply?

1. My Mother

The first person that came to mind when talking about habitual movements and unconscious gestures was my mother. Whenever she is lost in thought she always does this moment with her jaw where she pushes her bottom teeth forward when she is lost in thought. This moment is only a small moment that she does without even thinking about it but it changes her whole facial expression when she does it. The only emotion that shows on her face when doing this gesture is a serious and focused facial expression.

2. My Sister

The second person I thought of was my little sister. I’ve noticed that she tends to tilt her head to the side and play with her hair when she is listening to someone. the gesture is held for most of the conversation and only broken when she speaks or when the conversation is done. When she makes this movement she tilts her head to the left and uses both of her hands to fidget with the ends of her hair. The facial expressions she makes doesn’t have very much to do with her action and is typically different every time.

3. My Cat

The last person I thought of was actually my cat. He has a habit of rubbing or bumping his head on my leg every time he sees me. He will turn his head slightly to the side bump into my leg then rub from his head to the end of his body against my leg. He I believe that this is a movement of affection as every time he sees one of my family members he will do this moment. (I have a feeling he also does it because he thinks I’ll give him treats.)