Statement:

Despite being in the era of mass communication, what we say and how we say it has become increasingly mediated, programmatic and ghettoised. In this world, the gamut of human discourse and thought is often reduced to a simple, affirmative, and uncritical thumbs up between parties that readily identify with one another. Jacques Ranciere notes an inherent danger to widespread consensus because it can breed complacence, ignorance, and thoughtless complicity. He argues that in order to resist this phenomenon we need to encourage doubt and difference, and therefore motivate careful analysis and considered progress. However, all communication is necessarily limited by the rules that allow it. In fact, human interaction is inherently restricted, it is a defining feature of civilisation. As a means to approach these ideas, these works manipulate and subvert the performative, symbolic, and utilitarian aspects of hand gestures and games, because they are some of the most immediate and universal means of communication available to us.