Gaming the Game

The latest in convergence culture: this video, from the English band Kasabian, features an experiment in which the framework of video gaming is used to shape a soccer game between living players on an actual field. Vocalist Tom Meighan and Aston Villa striker Darren Bent, up in the stands with electronic controllers, are playing the players, who all wear headsets and respond to their commands. What is meant by "audience" and "performer" in this scenario is complicated, which is precisely the point. I'm not convinced this is future, since the roles that are blurred still need to exist in some sort of meaningful tension, but I do wonder about the up-and-coming Xboxed generation and how they understand the experience of spectatorship in sporting events.

If anything, you have to give it to Kasabian; they're pushing the edge of music marketing. A bit of background on the experiment can be found in another video here.

Fans Need to Dim Their Clothing

The Big League Stew reported that at a recent Oakland A's v. Baltimore Orioles game, two fans with LED jackets (one scrolling the message "Go Orioles") were asked by the umpire to turn them off. We can't have fans "disturbing" the game from up in the stands (or, more like it, disturbing the paid neon advertising), right?

I've written about this before--see Name That Audience 7, Fans on the Field, and Football's Continuous Ovation. What fans can and can't do is policed today far more than in the past. I wonder if it just might be better if they didn't attend games at all. Then athletic competition could proceed in its utmost purity: isolated and silent, except for the occasional grunt of physical exertion or the crystal call of an umpire.

Of course, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it....

Fourth of July Spectators

The Fourth of July, Independence Day in the United States, is a time of public celebration and spectacle. In particular, it occasions the public display of values central to the nation: history, citizenship, unity, etc. Display, of course, depends on spectating; performance is for the benefit of an audience. Below are some historical images related to audiences at the Fourth of July celebrations.

Fire Balloons and Fireworks

Raising a Fire Balloon, 1871

The Illumination of Union Square, New York, 1876

Speeches and Dedications

Fourth of July in the Country, 1867

Fourth of July Celebration, Woodstock, CT, 1870