After having gathered a substantial number of images and videos about handshakes between politicians I started to organise, compare and contrast them.

At this point my intention is to break down the total greeting into separate and discrete movements in order to analyse them individually. Ultimately, this dichotomy between the bigger picture and the minute details contributes to unravel the hidden significance behind each motion.

The theorical treatise by Francois Del Sarte titled System of oratory (1887) started to inform my way to navigate the data I collected. Particularly, the imaginary cube he theorised has been extremely valuable to comprehend some basic features of the power dynamics embedded through the gesture of shaking hands. Other taxonomies revolving around the topic of body language, gestures and hands, developed by authors who range from the 17^th century to the 20^th century, have also been a solid source of information and inspiration to conduct my own investigation. The first documented methodical catalogue of hand gestures dates back to 1644, and it is the work Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand, by Jonathan Balwer. The book offers a wide depiction of gestures related to a specific meaning. Other noteworthy operas are Chironomia (1806) by Gilbert Austin and A Manual of Gestures (1875) by Albert Bacon.

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A more recent attempt to provide a classification of gestures is The supplement to the Italian dictionary (1963) by the polyhedric graphic designer Bruno Munari. Munari analyses a series of typical ingrained Italian gestures and suggests a brief explanation as well as an objective and concise description for each of them.

Lastly, a project that has heavily influenced my practice in the last few months is the book Decoding Dictatorial Statues (2019) by the researcher and graphic designer Ted Hyunhak Yoon. Starting in 2014 as part of his final project at Royal College of Arts, Yoon has built an image archive of dictators’ statues. Yoon interest was to investigate the power of their body language. “A hand tucked into a pocket”, “A hand raised forward”, “Fingers spread flat or palms facing up”, A knee with a book resting on it”, “A foot frozen in marble, taking a decisive step forward”. The non-verbal rhetoric that shapes statues is undeniable.

When I came across Yoon’s work, I was amazed by the multitude of tangent points which connect my investigation to his research. Beyond some visible similarities with the subject of the analysis, I believe that the methodology that Yoon employs is very much relatable to my research. I was gladly impressed to ascertain how some of the choices that I intuitively took following the progression of my iterations, where already indicated in the path proposed by Yoon’s project. Therefore, the more I was looking into Yoon’s practice, the more it started to inform my subsequent steps. The first aspect that caught my attention is Yoon’s professional background. He is a graphic designer and consequently the research he conducts is solidly shaped by the tools and schemes of graphic design. The role he suggests for himself is designer as a content maker, in the sense that through his research he sheds new light on the analysed topic and contributes to create new knowledge. Something else I found very enlightening is that most of the historical manuals about gestures I encountered throughout my investigation are forming the base of references for Yoon’s project too. In his case the taxonomy of gestures is used to interpret the significance behind statues’ poses. Yoon eventually proposed the insights gained in his research adopting a wide range of mediums and outputs. One that I consider very appropriate and comprehensive is the performance where, through the use of a spherical structure he designed, he depicts the multitude of virtuous gestures performed by the statues.

I also acknowledge the fact the there is one main substantial difference between the subject of my analysis and Yoon’s topic. Collecting still images is appropriate in Yoon’s case since the statues are invariable matters, whereas the handshakes by their nature are elusive and mutable. For this reason I believe that the video material is more suitable because it shows the movement and the choreography of handshakes in its entirety and its whole evolution, whereas the still images freeze the movement in a specific moment which eventually doesn’t capture the complexity of the event.

Inspired by Munari’s approach and by Yoon’s methodical process, I decided to produce a short impersonal description for each of the different gestures of the political greetings taken from my video archive. The descriptions eventually took on the appearance of a sort of script with a succession of instructions.

TRUMP AND MACRON BIARRITZ FRANCE G7 SUMMIT 24 AUGUST 2019

1. B walks towards A while smiling
2. B offers their right hand to A with the palm perpendicular to the ground and the thumb pointing upwards
3. A grasps B’s hand, and they start to shaking hands vigorously.
4. A and B exchange a few inaudible words
5. B grips A’s upper arm with their left hand and applies light pressure
6. A points towards B with their left index finger
7. B lifts their left hand away from A’s upper arm and raises their left thumb from their fist

MACRON AND NARENDRA MODI CHANTILLY PALACE NEAR PARIS 22 AUGUST 2019

1. A and B briskly walk towards each other
2. B lifts their right forearm and points their hand perpendicular to the ground towards A
3. A and B join hands and hold them in the centre
4. A and B lean towards each other and wrap their arms around each other’s backs
5. B places his left arm on top of A’s right arm and vice versa
6. A’s head is close to B’s right shoulder and vice versa
7. A and B pat each other’s back multiple times
8. A and B lean their heads back, facing each other, still embracing
9. A and B switch side, this time A’s head close B’s left shoulder and vice versa.

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Finally, I decided to stage a performance using the script as a prompt. The two performers are called to re-enact the instructions, which a narrating voice is giving to them, in real time. The performers do not know in advance which movements they have to play, but rather, they must be flexible to re-adjust their actions spontaneously following the directions. I believe this method reflects the dynamism of the phenomenon of handshakes and allows us to see it in its whole complexity as a dialectical relationship and a dynamic performance. Furthermore, having the gestures divided into a sequence makes it possible to appreciate each single movement and extrapolate it from the fluid choreography of the handshake.

I arranged a script for each of the greetings I analysed among the G20 world Leaders, but I believe that it would be more interesting if I eventually end up with a series of scripts where I merge cliched gestures from different politicians, in order to achieve an ideal model of sorts of the political handshake. Eventually, one could recognise a particular move that is related to Trump or a specific kind of grip which is a prerogative of Macron.