1. Diachronic Perspectives on Embodiment and Technology: Gestures and Artefacts – An Introduction -- 2. Playing with Arte(f)actors -- 3. The Ineffability of Motion in Robotics -- 4. Sophia the Robot as a Political Choreography to Advance Economic Interests: An Exercise in Political Phenomenology and Critical Performance-Oriented Philosophy of Technology -- 5. Gestures, Diagrams, and the Craft of Musical Composition -- 6. Describing Robot Gestures by Design and Agency: An Exploration with Dennett’s Stances -- 7. The Philosophy of Gesture and Technological Artefacts -- 8. The Orchestration of Bodies and Artifacts in French Family Dinners -- 9. Towards an Ecology of Gesture: A Review (and some Promising Paths) -- 10. Petrified Practice: Is there a Vernacular Choreography of Neanderthal Movements? -- 11. The logos of techné — A Case for Technology as Interdisciplinary Anthropology.

This book investigates the relationships between gestures and artefacts theoretically and historically, by analyzing different phenomena stemming from a variety of fields such as robotics, archaeology, gesture studies, anthropology, philosophy, and gestural practices like choreography, music performance, and composition. It underlines how embodiment and technology change the interplay between maker and artefact over time and appeals to students and researchers in these fields. Its goal is to enable the reader to understand that the recurring topics and questions as well as multi-level similarities are by no means accidental, but can best be understood if one pays attention to the intertwinements of materiality and cognition, praxis and techne.