Founded in 2002, the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) is the only international scholarly association devoted to the study of human gesture. Gesture studies is a rich (and actually very old), interdisciplinary field, broadly concerned with examining the use of the hands and other parts of the body for communicative purposes. Gesture has been found to be indispensable from many arenas of human life, including thought, collaborative work, science, art, music and dance. Engineers seek to build computers that recognize hand-gestures. Cognitive scientists see in them windows into the human mind. Gesture researchers work in diverse academic and creative disciplines including anthropology, linguistics, psychology, history, neuroscience, communication, art history, perfromance studies, computer science, music, theater, and dance.