Bruce Eesly

Hands are our primary interface with technology. We use them to shape our tools, and they shape us in return. Hand signs allow us to communicate when we lack a shared language or when speaking becomes impractical or unsafe. Throughout history, we have used gestures as nonverbal signals of protest, dissent and hope in contexts where language is policed. Today, specific hand gestures, as well as AI slop, have become key ingredients of far-right dogwhistling and propaganda.

Endangered Gestures is a collection of hand signs for concepts currently under threat by authoritarian governments. The words corresponding to each gesture belong to a list of phrases that started disappearing from U.S. government websites, documents and archives in March 2025. Ideas related to diversity, climate change and social issues were no longer deemed acceptable and removed by hand or algorithm. Ironically, a large portion of the censored words read like a wishlist for a humane and equitable society.

In many ways, this new iteration of authoritarianism is built on code, on technological systems of manipulation and control. The artificial intelligence tools that have started shaping our thoughts and performing our jobs are not exempt from censorship. In a process called alignment, “problematic content” is filtered out from the training data.