Method for recognizing gestures and gesture detector

The present invention relates to a method for recognizing gestures within a two-dimensional video stream (3) for use in conference situations and the like, comprising the step of performing a skin-recognition within a screen (4) of the video stream (3) for recognizing skin parts (13), identifying at least one body part (19, 20) within the recognized skin parts (13), monitoring a state of at least one predefined screen area (23) in respect to the at least one body part (19, 20), and providing a control signal indicating a detected gesture upon detection of a change of state. The present invention further relates to a gesture detector (5) adapted to perform the above method, a presentation system (1) comprising the above gesture detector (5) and a video camera device (24) comprising a video camera (2) and the above gesture detector (5).