The simple hand gestures that could change your life

THE trick to appearing more intelligent and powerful could be in the palm of your hand. That's according to two artists who made a surprising discovery.

The secret to being smarter and more professional could be in the palm of your hands. Pic: Screengrab.

THE knack to appearing effortlessly smarter and more powerful could literally be in the palm of your hands.

That's according to The Glossary of Gestures for Critical Discussion, a Tumblr created by Alice May Williams and Jasmine Johnson as part of their Masters at Goldsmith College in London.

The artists developed the project after analysing the most common gestures used by academics and watching how they are picked up by students. The result is a website and merchandise poking fun at the elaborate gestures used to articulate complex ideas.

News_Module: The critical whirl

There's the "critical whirl," pictured above, for when "you've read too much Marx and can't get your words out," where the person circles their hand in a small but rapid motion.

Or the "picking up" of small ideas where one reaches down to an imaginary pile of sand and plucks the idea from the top before revealing it in the palm of their hand.

News_Module: The shelf sweep

The "shelf sweep" is a side to side motion used to explain the interaction of complex heirachies, while "the dialectic" involves gripping a six-centimetre object between thumb and forefinger and rotating your wrist, snapping it into position at the end to emphasise a point. The "tiny dialectic" is used for an even finer point.

News_Module: The dialectic

See the rest of the gestures here

Images courtesy of The Glossary of Gestures for Critical Dicussion

###