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Gestures
Throughout his career, the influential new media theorist Vilém Flusser kept the idea of gesture in mind: that people express their being in the world through a sweeping range of movements. He reconsiders familiar actions—from speaking and painting to smoking and telephoning—in terms of particular movement, opening a surprising new perspective on the ways we share and preserve meaning. A gesture may or may not be linked to specialized apparatus, though its form crucially affects the person who makes it.
These essays, published here as a collection in English for the first time, were written over roughly a half century and reflect both an eclectic array of interests and a durable commitment to phenomenological thought. Defining gesture as “a movement of the body or of a tool attached to the body for which there is no satisfactory causal explanation,” Flusser moves around the topic from diverse points of view, angles, and distances: at times he zooms in on a modest, ordinary movement such as taking a photograph, shaving, or listening to music; at others, he pulls back to look at something as vast and varied as human “making,” embracing everything from the fashioning of simple tools to mass manufacturing. But whatever the gesture, Flusser analyzes it as the expression of a particular form of consciousness, that is, as a particular relationship between the world and the one who gestures.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Vilém Flusser
87 books167 followersVilém Flusser was a philosopher born in Czechoslovakia. He lived for a long period in Brazil and later in France, and his works are written in several different languages.
His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Phenomenology would play a major role in the transition to the later phase of his work, in which he turned his attention to the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. He contributed to the dichotomy in history: the period of image worship, and period of text worship, with deviations consequently into idolatry and "textolatry".
Flusser was born in 1920 in Prague into a family of Jewish intellectuals. His father, Gustav Flusser, studied mathematics and physics (under Albert Einstein among others). Flusser attended German and Czech primary schools and later a German grammar school.
In 1938, Flusser started to study philosophy at the Juridical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. In 1939, shortly after the Nazi occupation, Flusser emigrated to London to continue his studies for one term at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Vilém Flusser lost all of his family in the German concentration camps: his father died in Buchenwald in 1940; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were brought to Auschwitz and later to Theresienstadt where they were killed. The next year, he emigrated to Brazil, living both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In 1960 he started to collaborate with the Brazilian Institute for Philosophy (IBF) in São Paulo and published in the Revista Brasileira de Filosofia; by these means he seriously approached the Brazilian intellectual community. During that decade he published and taught at several schools in São Paulo, being Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo and Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the Escola Dramática and the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo. He also participated actively in the arts, collaborating with the Bienal de São Paulo, among other cultural events.
Beginning in the 1950s he taught philosophy and functioned as a journalist, before publishing his first book Língua e realidade (Language and Reality) in 1963. In 1972 he decided to leave Brazil.
He lived in both Germany and the South of France. To the end of his life, he was quite active writing and giving lectures around media theory. He died in 1991 in a car accident, while visiting his native Prague to give a lecture.
His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Phenomenology would play a major role in the transition to the later phase of his work, in which he turned his attention to the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. He contributed to the dichotomy in history: the period of image worship, and period of text worship, with deviations consequently into idolatry and "textolatry".
Flusser was born in 1920 in Prague into a family of Jewish intellectuals. His father, Gustav Flusser, studied mathematics and physics (under Albert Einstein among others). Flusser attended German and Czech primary schools and later a German grammar school.
In 1938, Flusser started to study philosophy at the Juridical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. In 1939, shortly after the Nazi occupation, Flusser emigrated to London to continue his studies for one term at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Vilém Flusser lost all of his family in the German concentration camps: his father died in Buchenwald in 1940; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were brought to Auschwitz and later to Theresienstadt where they were killed. The next year, he emigrated to Brazil, living both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In 1960 he started to collaborate with the Brazilian Institute for Philosophy (IBF) in São Paulo and published in the Revista Brasileira de Filosofia; by these means he seriously approached the Brazilian intellectual community. During that decade he published and taught at several schools in São Paulo, being Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo and Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the Escola Dramática and the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo. He also participated actively in the arts, collaborating with the Bienal de São Paulo, among other cultural events.
Beginning in the 1950s he taught philosophy and functioned as a journalist, before publishing his first book Língua e realidade (Language and Reality) in 1963. In 1972 he decided to leave Brazil.
He lived in both Germany and the South of France. To the end of his life, he was quite active writing and giving lectures around media theory. He died in 1991 in a car accident, while visiting his native Prague to give a lecture.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 4, 2024
Después de leer varias cosas de Flusser encuentro que tiene ideas, aunque no se le da muy bien escribir. Es original, sin serlo lo suficiente como para que me entusiasme.
July 23, 2025
"Gesto é o movimento no qual se articula uma liberdade, afim de se revelar ou de se velar para o outro." s2
August 31, 2025
Certainly original and provocative!
I was expecting a more intimate description of gestures, their historicity and cultural specificity, which this provides somewhat. It moves a bit too soon to the polemical, however, such as arguments concerning the redundancy of certain gestures, which are abrupt and unnecessary. For example, writing, and the claim that those who wish to preserve it are simply archaic and absurd, and do so for purely self-centered reasons rather than a genuine sense that the gesture has any enduring importance. Maybe that's true, but it is also based on a limited view of what constitutes writing in the first place (though I understand that providing a rich description of a gesture will require setting clear parameters around what that gesture is or "looks like"). The description focuses mainly on the embodied, physical aspects of writing, and although it makes reference to its immaterial elements (such as the nature of thought that comes to fruition in writing), this is done rather insufficiently in my view.
I was expecting a more intimate description of gestures, their historicity and cultural specificity, which this provides somewhat. It moves a bit too soon to the polemical, however, such as arguments concerning the redundancy of certain gestures, which are abrupt and unnecessary. For example, writing, and the claim that those who wish to preserve it are simply archaic and absurd, and do so for purely self-centered reasons rather than a genuine sense that the gesture has any enduring importance. Maybe that's true, but it is also based on a limited view of what constitutes writing in the first place (though I understand that providing a rich description of a gesture will require setting clear parameters around what that gesture is or "looks like"). The description focuses mainly on the embodied, physical aspects of writing, and although it makes reference to its immaterial elements (such as the nature of thought that comes to fruition in writing), this is done rather insufficiently in my view.
May 21, 2022
This book is way too complicated to read, and I even think the writer took so much time explaining the smoking gesture... I think there was no need to take so many pages explaining that.
On the other hand, some comparison are really interesting, whilst others are not so much applicable nowadays.
On the other hand, some comparison are really interesting, whilst others are not so much applicable nowadays.
October 13, 2018
"Pleasure comes from the gesture, from "acting oneself out"... we are gestures."
Gesture as the pleasure of self, the joy in this devilish freedom to be.
Gesture as the pleasure of self, the joy in this devilish freedom to be.
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June 25, 2022thank you
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2020
no thanks!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews