Kinesics
Kinesics is my MA project from Coventry University, completed in 2007.
Kinesics studies how humans use body language, like facial expressions, gestures and other non-verbal behaviour to relate to other people. In focus of my research was the greeting gesture, how such a gesture changes from culture to culture, and how it changes according to gender relations across different cultures, and in formal, informal or generational situations within these cultures. From this gesture I studied personal space differences in the above mentioned situations, and found this as one of the most interesting aspects of my research. My documentation and visual exploration led to the development of a code system, I wanted to visually show cultural and situational differences in a visual, structured way, in which it would be possible to compare both greeting gestures and the use of personal space.
A further development of my project took shape in a live performance, in which I worked closely with a dancer, it is a performance called SUBJECT TO CHANGE and it follows one person in different situations, it shows how the inner her, her thoughts and feelings, influence her non-verbal, outer behaviour. It further puts the situations into different cultural perspectives in an audiovisual way, to show that the interpretation of a situation is in fact patterened by our cultural upbringing.
