hands movie, 2023
video, B&W, no sound
steel structure and monitor
06’19” | 40 x 39 x 36,5 cm

The “Hands Movie” is a choreography for two hands. Paying a direct homage to Yvonne Rainer’s video (shot in a hospital bed while recovering from surgery), the hands are controlled as puppets on strings. When the two hands are visible, the relations of power and control assume other layers of complexity. It isn’t clear which hand is really exerting power. Even when they change positions, not necessarily the top one is controlling the movements. With this direct and indelible relation – materialized by the string – becomes clear that the one in the bottom could, just as the superior one, pull the strings. Thus, traditional power relations are questioned, changing our perceptions of the established social dynamics. On the other hand, the video also proposes an interdependency with a strong and direct implication of every movement on the other (a different kind of Hegel’s “Lord-Bondsman” Dialectic).