Art and the 1-1
Osbourne Ruddock
the-sport-loving-can't-be-botherd-with-arty-shit's. I'm like the weirdo
in the middle who likes arty crap be it fine arts, books, music etc...
and I've always considered some sport to be fairly arty in it's own
right, in the sense of theatre etc...
I view football a bit like rock'n'roll, on the face of it it's a tedious
exercise in repetition (according to arty mates), but if you look closer
you'll find the art is in the way people work and create within the
confines of the medium. In rock music, we're limited by certain chord and
beat structures, yet from Chuck Berry to Bathory musicians have managed
to work within those limits to create new and exciting sounds.
Likewise in football, there is creativity in working as a team, the
perfect pass, a great shot saved by an organised defence etc... The drama
and energy of football also builds on the link with modern music, one of
the reasons there's so much music chat in the froup maybe?
But I've recently started to think that maybe this is dressing it up too
much. After all football really only has a finite number of outcomes. The
rules mean we almost always know roughly what we're going to see and what
the outcome will be. The Liverpool game last week was a genuinely
different experience because many footballing consistencies were turned
on their head, making it the exception that proves the rule.
One of the great things about art is that there are no rules. Surprise,
revulsion, humour, love, hate, boredom are all part and parcel of it.
Imagine going to a game where you genuinely didn't know what was going to
happen. Imagine football with a good dose of anarchy injected into it,
where rules might change from week to week, or change as certain events
came into play.
There's endless possiblities. The FA could be wired up to an alarm system
where a random number generation could cause a siren to give three short
blasts at Villa Park signifying a 15 minute period where all away goals
equaled 10 points rather than one. Imagine a score of 21-0 against the
Villa cunts. Or if a small boy in a blue shirt in the crowd waggled his
penis at the Right Back, then all that player had to do was piss on the
opposing teams penalty spot to end the game immediately. Crowd member
number 23,111 through the turnstile might always get to replace jersey
number 7 in the home team for 10 minutes immediately after half time.
There would be surprises. It would be performance art football. That
would be cool.
--
Cheers, Os
*****General
"Osbourne Ruddock" <stri...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns966A5E6891806st...@130.133.1.4...
> My friends can be split into two camps, the arty-loving-sport-haters and
> the-sport-loving-can't-be-botherd-with-arty-shit's. I'm like the weirdo
> in the middle who likes arty crap be it fine arts, books, music etc...
> and I've always considered some sport to be fairly arty in it's own
> right, in the sense of theatre etc...
Brings tears to your eyes sometimes times too.
> I view football a bit like rock'n'roll, on the face of it it's a tedious
> exercise in repetition (according to arty mates), but if you look closer
> you'll find the art is in the way people work and create within the
> confines of the medium. In rock music, we're limited by certain chord and
> beat structures, yet from Chuck Berry to Bathory musicians have managed
> to work within those limits to create new and exciting sounds.
Why put limits on creativity?
> Likewise in football, there is creativity in working as a team, the
> perfect pass, a great shot saved by an organised defence etc... The drama
> and energy of football also builds on the link with modern music, one of
> the reasons there's so much music chat in the froup maybe?
What? More than pron? I refuse to beieive it.
> But I've recently started to think that maybe this is dressing it up too
> much. After all football really only has a finite number of outcomes. The
> rules mean we almost always know roughly what we're going to see and what
> the outcome will be. The Liverpool game last week was a genuinely
> different experience because many footballing consistencies were turned
> on their head, making it the exception that proves the rule.
....and thus the bookies lost
> One of the great things about art is that there are no rules. Surprise,
> revulsion, humour, love, hate, boredom are all part and parcel of it.
> Imagine going to a game where you genuinely didn't know what was going to
> happen. Imagine football with a good dose of anarchy injected into it,
> where rules might change from week to week, or change as certain events
> came into play.
Are you secretly American? Sounds like a plan that Agent Glazer would come
up with.
> There's endless possiblities. The FA could be wired up to an alarm system
> where a random number generation could cause a siren to give three short
> blasts at Villa Park signifying a 15 minute period where all away goals
> equaled 10 points rather than one. Imagine a score of 21-0 against the
> Villa cunts. Or if a small boy in a blue shirt in the crowd waggled his
> penis at the Right Back, then all that player had to do was piss on the
> opposing teams penalty spot to end the game immediately. Crowd member
> number 23,111 through the turnstile might always get to replace jersey
> number 7 in the home team for 10 minutes immediately after half time.
>
...or Hollywood. I season ticket better come free with the popcorn.
> There would be surprises. It would be performance art football. That
> would be cool.
>
I think they would call that a football circus. Maybe Jerry Cottle could
sponsor it and Moscow State would rule Europe. It's ruled by Thee Reds at
the moment anyway.
Dat
wrote:
>There would be surprises. It would be performance art football. That
>would be cool.
A long time ago in a land far, far away a budding painter who had
adopted the name Cantona in honour of his love of choral music, took
time out of his busy schedule to attempt to rearrange the features of
a Crystal Palace fan whose face appeared to have been modelled on a
Picasso self portrait. Of course Cantona, who'd long been a fan of the
Barbizon school's realistic outlook, was troubled by the horribly
misshapen visage apparently taunting him from the sideline, and could
restrain his powerful suggestions for the improvement of the mouthy
cunt's badly drawn jigsaw head no longer when the opportunity
presented itself.
To say that the footballing public and the responsible authoritative
bodies appreciated his efforts to bring spontaneity and a sense of
theatre to a game that some, like your good self, would argue is in
need of an injection of some description, would be a kick in the face
to that fine artist's lifelong struggle.
--
Dat
Osbourne Ruddock
4ax.com:
> To say that the footballing public and the responsible authoritative
> bodies appreciated his efforts to bring spontaneity and a sense of
> theatre to a game that some, like your good self, would argue is in
> need of an injection of some description, would be a kick in the face
> to that fine artist's lifelong struggle.
>
Yet Cantona is the one player who might have actually known who The
Situationists were, ironically. He should've anchored a couple of dozen
balloons to himself and scored a hat trick for the opposing team. Now that
would've exhibited Gallic temperament.
--
Cheers, Os
Dat
wrote:
>Yet Cantona is the one player who might have actually known who The
>Situationists were, ironically.
And would his detractors have felt that little bit more warm and
cuddly towards him for it? I don't think so. No, they'd have been
chanting "La Particulièrement Grand Le Saux" at every opportunity,
only in better french, maybe.
>He should've anchored a couple of dozen
>balloons to himself and scored a hat trick for the opposing team. Now that
>would've exhibited Gallic temperament.
Why don't you stop beating around the bush and just come straight out
and say that you think all French footballers are clowns?
Er, sorry. I've had a little think about your original post and I like
the comparison to music, even your despair at the outcomes.
Think of the players as instruments, with free will over which notes
they can play no less, the standard formations as the common
chord/rhythm patterns, the manager as the conductor (with a very small
baton), etc.
Given a choice of one or t'other I'd opt for music, but thinking of it
like this I'd suggest that football has more variables. Let's knock
your conceding of the outcomes on the head from the get-go. Football
equals win, draw or loss. Music results in a song, be it instrumental
or not. 3 - 2 by my reckoning. Piece of piss this is.
Using the instrument analogy above, there are probably thousands of
different instruments, however there are quite a few more individuals
who can kick a ball. The rules you find so restrictive allow players
to pretty much kick a ball in whatever manner they choose, anywhere on
the park, and other than the backpass rule permit incalculable (did I
mention that I'm very poor at mathematics?) combinations of moves. Try
being so carefree with your arrangement of musical notes and goodness
knows what the hell you'll wind up with....jazz probably. Eeeeew.
Your mention of the way people work and create says it all for me, as
a spectator. Don't allow your pouncy mates to dissuade you. With
music, unless you're actually a member of the 'team', you rarely enjoy
the privilege of being there when the work is being created. You are
usually presented with the finished product, the result, and you can
like it or lump it. Even live a band is just repeating itself (or
someone else) with the odd variation, often due to their inability to
live up to their studio perfection, and half hour long renditions of
three minute pop songs with the obligatory ten minutes worth of guitar
wankery is more symbolic of their lack of concern for the audience and
their attendant expectations than it is about high art.
With a football match you will still get a result (OzTips would
suggest that it be slightly less predictable than you make out) but
even as an 'outsider' you are still permitted to bear witness to how
it came about, it's creation. Some might even say that with the home
crowd often being seen as an advantage that you could possibly have
some input into the process too. And whilst there are rules and
structures and the limited final outcomes that most contests offer,
there is much variability and beauty and enjoyment (and yes, pain and
anguish too) to be had in the making of a result that you may actually
dislike intensely.
I'd also dispute the assertion that art has no rules. Try entering a
digital print into a conventional photography only competition, or a
microscopic view of a nasal pore into the Archibald Prize, or some
stupid plasticine creation into the Academy Awards....oh wait, I've
gone too far.
On a side note (as if all this isn't), I'd have a bit more respect for
artistic awards if the product was more regularly assessed with
complete ignorance as to its creator. And that brings us neatly back
to the final product. Regardless of how it came about, a win is a win
is a win is a win. Two individuals could wind up attempting to kill
each other if their debate as to whether blue and green should ever be
seen without something different inbetween had to be settled one way
or the other.
Comparing football to all the various mediums of art isn't a fair
contest either. That'd be like putting cake decorating in the ring
with every aspect of every sport known to man. Sure lots of people
like cake and it could possibly win with the popular vote, but that
doesn't mean it wouldn't be like comparing apples to the whole
contents of a green grocer's emporium. Ok, the cider drinkers may sway
that one, but....oh, you know what I mean!
As far as performance art goes, it's more often than not just plain
shit, and predictably so. If you want to give me $50 to watch me rub
vegemite on my nutsack whilst taking a dump on your entrance fee then
you're welcome, but don't expect me or anyone else to enjoy it, or
find any deeply hidden meaning beyond base commercial gain in me
taking money off you for nothing I wouldn't be doing anyway.
"Performance art", as opposed to the performing arts, is the unlucky
dip of the entertainment world where your hard earned could very well
be wasted on watching some dozy fucker stare back at you until you've
had enough and decide to leave. At least with football you pays your
money and you can be reasonably guaranteed that a bunch of dozy
fuckers are going to have to stand out on a park for an hour and a
half, or thereabouts, and occasionally attempt to control the fate of
a smallish white (and there's another thing, it's not always
thesedays, is it?) round object whilst another group of similarly
blessed starfuckers attempt to put them off their game.
Well that's it. I've just convinced myself that if I had to forego
music or football, I'd sell the cd collection, the guitars, the amps,
and that broken ghey keyboard that's laughing at me behind my back,
and subscribe to the sports channel. Knowing my luck Setanta would
then secure the rights to the Premier League and substitute it with
continual reruns of Eurovision.
--
Dat