Fenomenologia gestului între Heidegger și Flusser

Abstract

In this article, I propose a phenomenological reflection on the problem of gesture. To begin with, I shed light on the difficulties encountered by the attempt to describe this phenomenon, given that the overflowing and irreducible plurality of gestures is constituted in various ways by the intertwining of several existential registers such as corporeality, intersubjectivity, affectivity and language. Then, I place the phenomenon of gesture in relation to bodily movement and the phenomenon of expressiveness, differentiating gestures from non-gestural movements and non-gestural expressions. Finally, I discuss two distinct phenomenological approaches which operate an enlargement of the concept of gesture, thus moving away from the primary meaning of the gesture as expressive, symbolic, intersubjectively anchored and affectively determined bodily movement. On the one hand, I show how Martin Heidegger rejects the relevance of the idea of expressivity to determine the gesture, emphasizing that all bodily movement, in order to be contrasted with the spatial movement of things, should be understood as gesture. On the other hand, I show how Vilém Flusser places the phenomenon of gesture in relation to the difference between moods and affect, understanding it as a symbolic movement for which we cannot find a satisfactory causal explanation.