Taryn Revell

Gestures of Everyday Life

1. 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?

The project Motus Mori that was discussed in this article is incredibly innovative, and fascinating to see played out. It is a very personal piece that allows for a reflection of an individual person’s unique personality based solely on their unconscious habits. A challenge that would come with that is the fact that the volunteers may try to unknowingly hide their habits, or change the way they move based on the fact that they know they are being observed. The Hawthorne effect is what it’s officially called, but this is not often seen in an art practice, making it a problem unique to the Motus Mori art project. 

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

An example that I really liked from this work was a man named Tjan, who had realized that he had a tendency to arrange his body to appear to take up less space. This was only discovered through the dancer that shadowed him, they discovered that Tjan hid his thumbs, which by itself seems like a miniscule habit of no real importance. However,  the discovery of that habit encouraged him to make adjustments in his personal life, and allow himself to take up space. 

This project not only represents people on a very interpersonal, representative level, but it clearly has the potential to help people in their personal lives. In this case, helping Tjan gain a bit more confidence and authority through his presence, and allow himself to be more seen by the world. 

3. 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?

A unique habit that my mother has is rubbing the side of her eyebrow. It’s only ever her right eyebrow, and only ever using her ring finger. She always does this when she is looking at something on her phone, when she is deep in thought, and entirely zoned out from the rest of the world, she isn’t even aware that she does it. I think it is sort of an unconscious way to destress, a repetitive action of rubbing something back and forth when gaining new information. 

A friend of mine named Mia, has a habit of rubbing her nails back and forth across each other. This is often when she is studying; taking a pause to think, or simply letting herself have a break. She’s stated that she is more aware of herself doing this habit, but she will start doing it almost automatically. Mia has a form of ADHD, so I believe her rubbing her nails is a sort of stim, a movement to self regulate, and allow her to focus on the task at hand. 

I myself have an odd habit as well, I flip my pencil around in my hands constantly. I taught myself how to do it during covid, and I’ve never really been able to stop since. There’s never a set time when I do it, when I’m studying, talking, reading, watching something, etc., if there’s ever a pencil near me, it will be in my hand. I think it’s also sort of a way for me to release my extra energy; so I can pay more attention to what I’m doing, and give myself something to focus on in the back of my mind so it doesn’t wander. 

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6