Working hands

The position illustrates quite well, the tracing of her history. They were working with a completely different tension in their muscles.

They tell about a gestural transaction system. Biometric scanning is so advanced that you need no chip. You are the chip. You make a gesture and you have paid.   

She says there is a rhythm that is significant to certain labour, but also certain sounds, sitting working, feeling the rhythm inside. She has been writing for days now.

Working hands, (2014) video, 14.53 min 
by Anna Koch 

The hands you see are moving in-between states. They are tracking, supporting, making rhythms in order to fill out gaps. They search, balance or emphasize words. Helping the uncivilized to be civilized and articulated? Or negotiating which story to be told? Some gestures are made for nothing, some to make sense.

The hands you see are hands moving while talking about work. Through a conversation the are reflecting their own genealogical past. How does the working body write itself through history from within the actual physically executed work?

Some speak of how certain traces are left within themselves, or how radically different one relates to that we call work, if work ever stops or if it is an ever continues flow of activity, or a habit that is dominating your life. Working hands could also not be working. Some hands speak about skill, lost skills, skills gained with new technologies. About holding on to old values or to let go. Some speak about abuse, about working to many hours, tensed in the same position. Some speak about not having any work at all.

The video is shown on a very small projection on an insignificant place in a gallery. Besides it a small podium with 15 small paper-stripes of selected sentences from a conversation.

Working hands was a commission for Töne festival, Chatham UK, 2014.