Bruce Eesly

A reflection on censorship, technological bias and resistance through gestures of remembrance: “Endangered Gestures” shows AI-generated hand gestures for words that are currently threatened by authoritarian changes around the world.

The black-and-white video proposes hand gestures for terms and concepts currently under threat by authoritarian shifts around the world. The words corresponding to each gesture started disappearing from U.S. government websites, documents and archives in 2025. Ironically, they may read like a wishlist for a humane and equitable society: integration, allyship, accessibility, vaccines, mental health, environmental justice …

Asking generative imaging technology to create hand gestures for these words is an attempt at finding a language of resistance within the ideological constraints of the technology. The increasingly improbable gestures may leave the viewer wondering what strategies and contortions will be required of us to protect and remember these achievements in the age of tech-enabled authoritarianism. The work is a reflection on censorship and the inherent bias in the algorithmic representation of human knowledge, as well as a small reminder of things worth fostering and celebrating.

Bruce Eesly is a visual artist and gardener based in Berlin, Germany. Working with photography, archives and generative imaging technologies, his work blurs fact and fiction to question narratives of technological progress.