“The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed,” says William Gibson. Gestures used to activate new devices are patented—for example, the “slide-to-unlock” movement patented by Apple in 2011. Julien Prévieux started to collect these specific movements in 2006. His assumption was that the gestures patented today are the movements we may all have to do in the near future: patents as an archive of gestures to come. To date, Prévieux has created three sequences of WSWDN?: Sequence #1 is the archive of gestures shown as a 3D animated short film; Sequence #2 is a video made with six performers; Sequence #3 is a set of live performances questioning the property of gestures. Featured in the exhibition at Blackwood Gallery is Sequence #2 and Sequence #3.

Sequence #2 is a video made with six performers. They perform the diagrams found in the patents, considering patents as dance scores. Previeux takes ownership of these movements and frees them from their practical function through choreographic abstraction.