Many European intellectuals and philosophers are of the idea that Europe's hallmark of existence is ambiguity, or "hantise" as Jacques Derrida calls it; its real effects depend precisely on this ambiguity, on its non-existence. The very idea of European cultural identity is based on a geographical space where limits and boundaries change continuously. Within the geographical space that is Europe identity takes on a fluctuating meaning that survives by connections and thus overcomes the counterposition between universalism and particularism.
And it is in fact by observation of gesturing in places where such connections come about that a video-document is to be made on gestural expression within different European cultures, like a magnifying glass focused on the micro-level counterpart of Europe as a geographical area: the town. Observation and recording of gesturing concentrates particularly on casual meetings in public places of the town; a visual fresco and its visual strength and aesthetical dimension caught as it is expressed in public.
The starting place of this documentation will be Naples. It is in this part of southern Italy that Andrea De Jorio was born and lived; considered the first "gestural ethnographer", he published his La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano (Mimicry of the past investigated in Neapolitan gestures) in 1832. It is in this area around Naples that gesturing as a form of communication is still widely used. Our research will be a real journey through all the cities that are partners in the project, in order to construct a Babel of Gestures; through various laboratories for the montage of the material collected these will lead to the realisation of a video in which the viewer can lose himself in his own search for connections, suggestions, analogies, differences....