Francois Del Sarte was a French singer, orator and coach who, in the mid 1800s, developed a system of oratory techniques to teach actors, politicians, priests, orators and public speakers how to take advantege of gestures and body language to amplify the meaning of their spoken words. Del Sarte was interested in the relationships between physical behavior, emotion, and language and his aim was to indentify a sort of model which could explain scientific principles of expression. Del sarte exploration involved the body in its integrity, but a specific attention is dedicated to the hands. In particular, Del Sarte theorised the attitudes pof the hands through an imaginary cube. In front of any speaker there is a imaginary cube which could be grasped from many different angles. Each position of the hands in relation to the cube has a specific meaning according to Del Sarte. For instance, placing the hands on the upper surface of the cube may communicate possession and the speaker has control on the issue. Conversely, touching the cube from the bottom side means that the speaker is taking care of the subject.
Del Sarte’s cube model about gesticulation can be easily applied to greetings and handshakes as well. The way a politician offers their hand to the interlocutor can be seen from the cube’s prespective, so for instance a palm down approach communicates authority whereas a hand presented palm up suggests submission.
In paritular I found interesting the relation between the palm up and the idea of caring for someone, which sounds to me something very far from the political power play.
After thinking of a cheesy wordplay on the term “greetings,” I designed a series of cheesy postcards where the act of shaking hands is deprived of its original meaning and is re-contextualised.