What's the point?
imperative, declarative and metonymic oh my!
TL; DR: just see the point(s) ☟
Humans learn to point around 15 months of age (related to language development), first using their whole hand, then, three months later, by extending their index finger. Infants first do imperative pointing (for example, to ask for a toy too far away or a sweet they want), and declarative pointing, (i.e. to indicate something new or interesting, like a dog entering the room.)
Animals don’t point. This includes mammals with fingers, like simians. However, even though they don’t point in the wild, when in captivity gorillas and chimpanzees learn how to do it from humans. Dogs understand pointing (from thousands of years of interacting with people — cats, also domesticated, just can’t be bothered), as do dolphins (perhaps because their echolocation “beam” is a sonic type of pointing).
There are numerous ways of pointing: semiotic primitive; pseudo-pointing; syntactic; cross-species litmus test… (see “Fifteen Ways of Looking at a Pointing Gesture” by Kensy Cooperrider for more of them.) Metonymic pointing is where you use the gesture to draw attention to an abstract concept — for example, a stressed staffer points to their watch to signal to the malapropping President answering questions it’s time to go; a heartless developer points to your home to indicate a proposed subway and condominium development… ):
Pointing can be difficult to interpret — for example, if you are wordlessly communicating with a person who doesn’t speak your language and you point to an apple, are you drawing attention to its color, its shape, your hunger? If you point to it three times, are you indicating a different attribute each time?
The woman above made multiple pointing gestures over the course of a few minutes. Just by changing the angle and thrust of her extended index finger she seemed to indicate good cheer, then irritation, and finally anger. (I assume it was related to parking complications. But she could have simply been drawing attention to, and passing judgement on, the state or the angle of her own reflection on the car’s glossy hood. Or bird shit splatter on the car. Or she may have been doing one of those litmus-test points with a different species, the male driving the car. Difficult to interpret.)
Different cultures point differently, sometimes encoding extra information: in Japan, to indicate politeness, a Shinkansen stewardess might use a flat hand to direct you to the right seat; in the land of Disney, park staff are trained to point with two fingers (index and middle) for the same unrude reason. Some Aboriginal people in Australia, when asked directions, might indicate that the direction of travel is not linear by pointing with a curved finger.
It’s impossible not to look in the intended direction of a pointed finger. It’s more than curiosity, it must be a genetic survival trait — “A lion, over there!”.
With most of the subjects gesturing at something off-frame, this set of “The Window” photographs purposely frustrates that survival trait and ambiguates all context. No threat revealed, no curiosity satisfied. What are they pointing at — Drake walking by? A dog driving a toy Benz? A dead body?…
Or, in the few photos when only the pointee is centered — the man with the wrapped arm, above, third photo; the man in the chair directly below — the inverse: who is doing the pointing, and why?
“Relational aesthetics” was coined by curator Nicolas Bourriaud to describe art based on social interactions and context (ie. Rirkrit Tiravanija serving pad Thai to attendees at a museum.) Pointing is only diectic, only performed in a social context — no one points when they are alone.
The photos below are “relationally aestheticized”, arranged to point at each other in a museum setting (follow the points):
All the photos in “The Window” series have been taken from a single location (okay, two: pre proposed-subway/condo and post-demolition places) over a few years. Different seasons, times of day, people and situations, compressed above into one time and setting. In this new singular context each individual’s pointing gesture is both nullified and multiplied in meaning.
The photos creating the labyrinth of imperative, declarative, and interrogative pointing arrangement now also get a layer of funny, kind of like that Spiderman meme where multiple identical Spidermen point at each other, each thinking the other ones are “other”.
There’s lots of literal and metonymic finger-pointing in high and low art: in Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” (Jesus to bread, John to heaven, Jude at Jesus); that flying glove in the movie “Yellow Submarine”; multiple images by Banksy; Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” (with God pointing at man pointing at God, their fingers just about to touch…)
What’s the point?
There’s none, and there’s many, simultaneously.
NOTES:
☞ the infant in the stroller got startled by the gorilla costume (bottom left of the image), and imperatively pointed “Go to mom!”
☞ the man in the chair was there by 7:00 am. he was about the 10th person to stake his place in a line outside KITH that Sunday morning for a drop of limited-release sneakers (available for purchase when the store opened 4 hours later). difficult to interpret why he was being pointed at (hand, top right corner of image); maybe a competing cool hunter claiming line-cutting, maybe his re-seller boss laying down terms of service, maybe a security guard making a point: no blocking the walk…
☞ the parking officer often points with panache
☞ the woman pointing upwards was observing the recent once-in-120-years eclipse. it was cloudy; a few people were looking the wrong way to the sun. some city people notice the sky only once a century or so.
☞ “The Window” is a metonymic point
☞ a manicule is a symbol or drawing of a pointing hand used to draw attention to an important part of the text. they originated in 12th century manuscripts as drawings (in the margins of the book) of a hand with an extended finger (sometimes absurdly long)
☞ a sixteenth way of pointing: technopointing — phone as prosthetic index finger (man with flag on balcony, top of image, pointed at by protestor’s phones, bottom)
👄 some cultures point with their lips: Ojibway, Filipino, Keralan, Kenyan, Peruvian…
☞ don’t go chasing pointing at rainbows — over 120+ cultures have a “no pointing at that magical curve of colors in the sky” rule (rainbows are supernatural + pointing is aggressive)
☞ this post’s equation: 5000 photos ÷ 15 total “pointers” = 0.3%
BONUS IMAGE:
A seventeenth way: offensive pointing, which involves the use of an alternate finger in order to indicate something irritating you really don’t want someone (say, your artist friend) to do:
PREVIOUS POSTS:
15 Ways of Pointing? How ‘bout:
Not so “other”? How ‘bout:
K.I.A.: genetically modified paintings, remixable installations, snow glyphs &: nu4ya.com
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