McCarthy and McDonald explore the meaning of small gestures in How We Act Together, an art installation built upon machine learning algorithms that track body movements. In the piece, participants are commanded to perform and repeat specific gestures, such as scream or nod – to the point of exhaustion. As long as participants keep performing the gestures, they can view previous performers of the gesture onscreen. If they repeat the gesure longer than all previous participants, their recording is added. Thus, the work is an accumulation of those who endured these performances the longest. The work was on display at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany in 2016, but also allowed remote entries through a website.
The hyperfocus on seemingly inconsequential gestures allows us to consider them in a new, awkward way. It’s like the digital art installation version of fumblecore. It’s like kerning a word in Illustrator for too long such that it loses it’s meaning. In this piece, the small movements we take for granted are exposed, made absurd. In this new context of absurdity and exhaustion, new encounters with these gestures – their associated emotions, meanings – are possible. The piece, then, forces us to appreciate the semantics of our “cultural body” experientially. The piece helps us to notice our bodies in a way that reminds me of why I’m interested in meditation or yoga: how are these relationships with our bodies?