Foucault again, discussing the disciplinary mechanism of the examination:

The examination combines the techniques of an observing hierarchy and those of a normalizing judgement. It is a normalizing gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish. It establishes over individuals a visibility through which one differentiates them and judges them. That is why, in all the mechanisms of discipline, the examination is highly ritualized. In it are combined the ceremony of power and the form of the experiment, the deployment of force and the establishment of truth (Discipline and Punish, p.184).

Michel Foucault writes:

Over the whole surface of contact between the body and the object it handles, power is introduced, fastening them to one another. It constitutes a body-weapon, body-tool, body-machine complex. One is as far as possible from those forms of subjection that demanded of the body only signs or products, forms of expression or the result of labour. The regulation imposed by power is at the same time the law of construction of the operation. Thus disciplinary power appears to have the function not so much of deduction as of synthesis, not so much of exploitation of the product as of coercive link with the apparatus of production (Discipline and Punish, p.153).

A story on CBC notes that pedometers are "the new water bottle, an exercise accessory to help people log kilometres travelled."

On Monday, Finegood launched a research project called Canada on the Move. Canadians with pedometers can go to a website, enter some information and help researchers learn whether tracking steps helps people get fit.

"Just handing a pedometer to anybody on the street isn't necessarily going to be an effective use of funds," said Finegood. "One needs to understand who are the people who are going take advantage of this and receive benefits?"

In about six months, the CIHR hopes to have enough data to analyse. They want to see if pedometers provide the extra motivation to get people out of cars, off the elevator and on their feet.

The water bottle comment has another (unintended) significance: in the age of cybernetic information flows that penetrate the body, electro-data feedback becomes as necessary to the would-be exerciser as H₂0.

What is the act of sport in the age of mediated simulation? It is to take the sport experience and turn it into a series of data fields to be stored in a spreadsheet or database. Consider the data fields that correspond to the statistical categories for basketball — PTS, REB, AST, BLK, TO, etc. — as well as athlete demographic data such as height, weight and age. This data constitutes an extremely valuable asset for the NBA, which sells it for usage in videogames, fantasy sports, and other downstream media products.

Capturing that data completely changes the sport experience, however. Consider the spreadsheet program, which is used to manage and manipulate vast tables of data. It is interesting that each data field or unit of information in the spreadsheet array is referred to as a cell, which takes on two different meanings in the context of capturing data flows from the sporting uncertainty-of-outcome process:

First is the notion of the cell as a method of confinement, as a technique for segregating athletes (or components thereof) into certain categories; for one can only consider the capture of athletic performance into data fields — or cells — to be later revisited, recombined or repurposed, as a form of confinement: produce numbers, in these predetermined categories, or be relegated to the trash heap.

Second, and perhaps more important to the discussion at hand, is the cell as the digital manifestation of this data originally produced in organic form. With information technologies continuing to insinuate themselves into the body (in both its individual and social/collective forms), the human is becoming increasingly uploaded into virtual space, leaving behind only a carcass that continues to exude bits of data long after its relevance has disappeared. In essence, the decomposing meat of the human athlete metamorphoses into the digital cells of the posthuman athlete, and then shrivels into non-existence.

Consider it a pseudo-Foucaultian disciplinary technology: the digital manifestation of the athlete is confined in the carceral space of the categorical cell boundaries, while the panoptic gaze of the spectating public disciplines and conditions the athlete to perform appropriately within said categories. The athletes are further disciplined by the rank of the categories: in this case, PTS are valued more highly than AST or REB, which are themselves valued more highly than BLK or TO.

The athlete's artistry — the interstitial fluid that holds these cells together — is bled dry in such a digital environment.

Perhaps interstitial fluid is extending the metaphor of corporeality a little too far, however. As the body disintegrates into ones and zeroes, what is truly lost in the process is art as the quintessence of the human soul.

ESPN.com reports that the Carolina Panthers have won Super Bowl XXXVIII, which is scheduled for Feb. 1, 2004, by downing the New England Patriots 17-13.

How did this happen? In what is becoming standard Spectacle Industry practice (since Microsoft first called the Pats Super Bowl upset 2 years ago), ESPN.com simulated the game. For the game at hand, they had WhatIfSports.com simulate this year's matchup between the Panthers and Patriots; a 10,000-game sample saw the Panthers victorious 53 percent of the time.

Much like what I did here, ESPN.com then wrapped a narrative around WhatIfSports' statistical output:

"'I don't know what happened,' a tearful Vinatieri explained in the Patriots somber locker room. 'Maybe they opened the doors on the south end or something. I just don't know.' — this after Vinatieri "missed" two field goals in the simulation.

How long will it be until we have virtual athletes playing virtual games? How long until that filial recombination of television, console videogame, T3 broadband connection, and fantasy sports league cannibalizes professional athletes out of existence?

More importantly in the short run, how does the generation of these simulated outcomes affect the real outcome that will be played in over a week's time?

[H]ere it is a question of a reversal of origin and finality, for all the forms change once they are not so much mechanically reproduced but even conceived from the point-of-view of their very reproducibility, diffracted from a generating nucleus we call the model. … Here are the models from which proceed all forms according to the modulation of their differences. Only affiliation to the model makes sense, and nothing flows any longer according to its end, but proceeds from the model, the "signifier of reference," which is a kind of anterior finality and the only resemblance there is (Baudrillard, Simulations, p.100).

This is ESPN for chrissakes. Are you telling me that the Pats haven't seen this news story or heard about it through friends? Is it not possible that the slightest element of doubt enters the minds of Vinatieri or the other New England players leading up to the game? What about when the simulations get even better than they are right now? What about when the teams themselves use simulation software to an ever higher degree than they do now — could an adverse ESPN story at that point shake the faith of those increasingly reliant on simulation feedback?

The entire mindset of the athlete must change when placed in this situation. The game that ends up being played on Feb. 1 will just end up being one of 10,000 or 100,000 or 100,000,000 that were already simulated in a database somewhere. It is complete chance as to which one will be picked that day.

Where is the art form in that?

From ESPN.com's Page 3 column on the top 100 Simpsons sports moments of all time (italics are mine):

25. 'Topes move? 'Topes move? Homer tries to call attention to the Duff Brewery's cover-up of a plan to move the Springfield Isotopes to Albuquerque by starting a hunger strike. Not even his friends believe him, insisting that they certainly would have heard something on a talk radio show "like 'Sports Chat' or 'Sportzilla and the Jabber Jocks.' " Chained up outside the stadium, Homer starts cutting into the ticket sales, so the owners move him to the batter's-eye behind center field and turn him into their new mascot, "Hungry Hungry Homer." When offered a new Isotope Supreme Dog — with mesquite-grilled onions and jalapeno relish — Homer realizes this is the kind of "bold flavor they enjoy … in Albuquerque!" The truth is revealed, and the team is saved.

Bonus fun fact: This episode aired in 2001, and two years later the Calgary Cannons relocated to Albuquerque and were renamed the Isotopes. The name was chosen by a fan vote.

Another example of intertextuality cropping up in sport.

Some notes from watching NFL football this past weekend:

Turf Conditioning

Both playoff games this year at New England's Gillette Stadium have been played in extremely cold weather. Fortunately, Gillette has a recently-built radiant heating/turf warming system that uses 29 miles of cross-linked polyethylene pipes that warm the soil. While not meant specifically to melt snow at the surface, this can happen when the system is on. Though softening the frozen turf in this fashion seems like typical American luxury/excess (the "wastrels" of Baudrillard), when viewed in the context of multi-million dollar assets being repeatedly hurled to the ground during a production process, all of a sudden it seems like a far more pragmatic management response.

Add the Ads

I am amazed at how many people I know that are excited to get an illegal American satellite feed of the SuperBowl next weekend. Why? So they can see the American commercials rather than the simulcasted Canadian ones.

Did anyone else notice the key play that led to Philadelphia Eagles' only points on Sunday? Scenario: it's the second quarter, 3rd-and-20 at the Carolina 33, and Donovan McNabb fires a pass towards the sideline that is snared by a diving Freddie Mitchell. Mitchell rolls when he hits the ground and the referee rules that the ball came loose and is thus an incomplete pass. Coach Andy Reid successfully challenges the ruling and the incomplete call is overturned, leading to a David Akers field goal.

Here's the kicker though (pun intended): Reid waited to throw the red coaches challenge flag out until he had seen the replay of the Mitchell catch on the jumbotron.

Now instant replay has certainly changed the viewing experience for the TV spectator back home; it has also more recently changed the way the game is officiated. But in concert with the in-house jumbotron, the game itself is now fundamentally changing: Reid essentially went back in time (by viewing the jumbotron) before deciding his next tactical move (throwing the flag).

("There is no more 'past' under electric culture: every 'past' is now. And there is no future: it is already here" — McLuhan.)

An interesting story from last night: one of my students has a friend who plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and whom he subsequently picked up for his Yahoo! Fantasy Hockey League team. Talking to the friend on the phone the other night, he told him (jokingly) that he had better produce, or else be dropped to the waiver wire in a flash.

This is very reminiscent of The Sports Guy's earlier musings on pro athletes playing sports videogames. Do they play as themselves? What burden does the relationship with the virtual self place on the relationship with the meat-self?

An ESPN.com segment on the new EA Sports football game might shed some light:

[Ricky] Williams doesn't like to use himself, hasn't really since firing up NCAA Football when he was a fullback his freshman year at Texas, when he needed more carries. Instead he opts for running QB's, in this case Michael Vick, so he can take full advantage of the option.

. . .

Well, either way, I was just getting played. I was the Dolphins in tribute to the man to my left [Williams], and Duckett was plowing over cyber Ricky, who on defense was my linebacker.

"You're letting me down man," I said to him.

"My bad."

Maybe he really felt sorry because soon after my team styled its way to a 27-25 lead. Unfortunately, after that, the Falcons scored on the next two possessions to win 41-27.

"You gave me a run for my money," Williams said. "You almost came back."

Easy for him to say, he was the reason I almost came back, as his virtual double was my Player of the Game in the losing effort. Though his tackling skills were poor in the game (and I let him know it), he did end up with a defensive TD and two fumble recoveries.

From The Sports Guy:

Speaking of the Titans, here's reason No. 4,355 why I love football: On Sunday, the ESPN Sunday Countdown guys were talking about McNair's performance, how he moved considerably better than he did against Baltimore (when he was practically crippled). Someone mentioned how McNair finally started limping on that final drive, how that may have derailed the Titans more than anything. So Steve Young casually mentions, "I think the painkillers started wearing off — they usually don't last for the whole game."

First of all, you have to love any sport that incorporates sentences like "I think the painkillers started wearing off — they usually don't last for the whole game." Just once, I want to say this at work and have everyone nod knowingly.

More importantly, what could they have possibly injected in McNair's leg to mask a torn f*****g calf muscle for three hours? Hillbilly heroin? A horse tranquilizer? Imagine McNair out there in minus-two-degree weather, trying to muster a game-winning drive, and suddenly his leg starts throbbing, and he's thinking to himself, "Damn, they should have injected me with the tranquilizer for the 1,500-pound horses, not the 1,200-pound horses! What were they thinking?" What a strange sport.

CBS declined to sell SuperBowl airtime to MoveOn.org, an online advocacy group willing to pay $1.6 million to run the commercial that won their "Bush in 30 Seconds" ad contest. The spot criticizes the Bush administration's run-up of federal debt.

Though CNN is planning to run the ad during January, this type of decision (while arbitrary) is apparently standard practice at CBS, ABC and NBC. However, when viewed in the context of gridiron football being a robust model of the American military-industrial complex, and knowing that the SuperBowl is the biggest NFL spectacle of them all, the proposed ad becomes far more inflammatory and the resulting refusal becomes far more reactionary.

The WWE SmackDown! biography of John Cena:

JOHN CENA

Height: 6 foot 1

Weight: 240 pounds

From: West Newbury, Mass.

Finishing Move: FU

Very rarely has an athlete entered the ring who can walk the walk and talk the talk immediately, but if anybody could have done it, it would be John Cena. Using an uncanny ability to perform in the ring and at the microphone in his own unique way, Cena spent his rookie year in WWE challenging the best in the business for in-ring supremacy.
A former football star at Springfield College, Cena began the two activities that would prove to define him?training and rapping. Now he is doing both in front of millions on a weekly basis.

Cena claims to already be a legend. While that issue may be in doubt, there is no denying that he has the talent to be a legend one day. He has faced some of the very best to ever compete in WWE and has held his own. There is little doubt that it is a matter of time before this young upstart has championship gold around his waist.

While basketball, baseball and football jerseys are certainly an integral part of urban hip hop fashion, it is interesting to see them being read through the text of postmodern sport — that is, as part of the "uniform" of a WWE sub-brand.

Shock! Horror! The revelation comes out that retired tennis superstar John McEnroe "took steroids unknowingly" for six years during his career.

(Teeth gnashing from Andre Aghast-i.)

What I find interesting about this story are the results of the admittedly unscientific poll that accompanied the article on ESPN.com (shown here after my vote). Only 13% of the voters have changed their minds about McEnroe with the news about steroid use — the other 87% don't care!

This supports my earlier hypothesis: in the end, sports fans really won't care one way or the other about drug use in sports. Drugs — or more specifically, synthetic pharmaceuticals and other chemical compounds, many of which are controlled by the corporate pharmaceutical complex — are an important part of our post-industrial society. Their consumption is part of our Will to Virtuality, or more precisely in this case, our Will to Become Code.

Modern sport, on the other hand, with its Tradition and Truth, functions as part of our chrysalis digitalis, protecting ourselves from the world — and ourselves — as we transform into posthuman butterflies.

smithers:

[Aside] A great deal of Marshall McLuhan's work was criticized by his contemporaries, both for its convoluted style and lack of scientific rigour. Less apparent were the intelligent critiques that drilled down through McLuhan's sometimes opaque prose to challenge his probes — those aphorisms written in "electronic fashion" to stimulate the minds of the Electric Age.

For those willing to take the journey (which was all McLuhan really asked in the first place), the results were noteworthy. A collection of these may be found in McLuhan: Hot & Cool, which was dubbed "a philosophical discotheque" by Harper's magazine.

I would like to add something to the debate: one of McLuhan's primary frameworks was the distinction between pre-literate, literate, and post-literate societies, which are classified based on the dominant mode(s) of communication of the day. Pre-literate societies communicate primarily by the spoken word; literate societies emerged from the introduction of the phonetic alphabet and the Gutenberg press and communicate predominantly through book form; and post-literate societies are those that are characterized by the electric communications technologies of telegraph, telephone, radio, television, personal computer, satellite, etc. McLuhan's hypothesis was that post-literate societies — that is, those who live in the electric age of communications, such as ourselves — would very much resemble pre-literate (ie. "tribal") societies in the way that they acted, both as individuals and as a collective.

The problem I have with McLuhan's framework is that I don't think it adequately considers the vector of change. Those entering the Electric Age (the future ancestors of Kroker's virtual class) are emerging from the visually-oriented, linear mindset of the literate age and all that it represents, and no matter how closely we may indeed resemble pre-literate tribal peoples in their behaviours and sensory ratios, it must be noted that this will be a categorically different group of people given that we are vectoring away from the Print Age.

Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is goin' bye-bye.

[Exit]

From The Portland Business Journal on the new Nike commercial featuring LeBron James:

In the ad from longtime Nike agency Wieden & Kennedy, Nike presents a slew of WNBA players, including Sue Bird, Dawn Staley, Chamique Holdsclaw, Tina Thompson, Tamika Catchings, Katie Smith, Nikki Teasley and Sheryl Swoopes, who are cast as a choir in what is depicted as a combination church/gymnasium.

With retro appeal continuing to drive the sports apparel market, NBA hall of famers Julius Erving, Moses Malone, George "Iceman" Gervin and Jerry West pitch in as congregants. Bernie Mac stars as the preacher in the spot, where James is anointed as the choir serenades him.

. . .

Nike has little to prove in a basketball category it dominates, but Blanke said, "It's a case of how many eggs they are going to put in the LeBron basket. … This will give Nike a good indication of how much they will be able to ride him in the future — but I think he's got pretty big shoulders."

He's not just a deity, but The Salvation of Basketball — male and female, past, present and future.

(An aside about the Chosen One: how about this for a little screw-you to LBJ? Three games, five days, all on the road, versus Vince, Pierce, and Kobe. Yikes!)

From CNN.com:

The same family of chemicals that produces a buzz in marijuana smokers may be responsible for "runner's high," the euphoric feeling that some people get when they exercise, U.S. researchers say.

. . .

Anandamide is a cannabinoid, or lipid molecule, that is naturally produced in the body. It is known to produce sensations that are similar to those of THC, the psychoactive property in marijuana.

The study's findings, which were recently published in the journal NeuroReport, fly in the face of those who believe that the release of brain chemicals called endorphins cause the peculiar high that some runners and cyclists claim to feel.

Arne Dietrich, the study's principal investigator and a former visiting professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, believes the body releases cannabinoids to help it cope with the prolonged stress and pain of moderate or intense exercise.

Some musings from the last few days:

At The Arena

I was amazed at how little I actually watched of the Raptors-Clippers game the other night at the ACC. I was socializing with a big group and the game just seemed to happen in the background. It didn't help that the game was generally a snoozer for 3 quarters — but I was still surprised since I have not been to enough pro sports events to become jaded with the process.

Perfection

Through six quarters of playoff football, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning had a "perfect" QB rating of 158.3, despite the fact that he was "only" 30-for-38 passing up until that point. What exactly is perfection? Can perfection be achieved in sport?

To The Max

I was watching Michael Jordan to the Max this morning, and two things jumped out at me. The first was that Chicago's United Center was packed to watch Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals between the Bulls and the Utah Jazz, which was being played in Salt Lake City. Now this practice of a visiting team playing the game at their home arena or stadium for the fans who couldn't make it has existed for some time. However, it very much struck me that the Chicago crowd was going nuts, the cheerleaders were dancing on the hardwood, and the game was being played on the big screen. (Presumably, one could purchase expensive concessions as well.)

The other item of note from the video was the use of "Bullet Time" technology to give the 270-degree pan of Jordan's signature tongue-wagging, leg-hanging dunk from the free throw line. Beyond the Matrix-like effect of altering linear time, it was also significant for the fact that the dunk was seemingly performed on a slightly shorter than regulation rim, and well within the free throw line. With the magic of CGI, however, the Jordan of old became Neo, floating through the air to slam the ball through the rim. The One.

Vegas Odds

Is gambling on NFL games a pure market economy with perfect information?

Sports fans from wealthy industrialized regions express shock when learning of the young footballer in a developing nation who, having learned the game barefoot in the dirt, struggles when making the big squad because it is the first time he has worn (seemingly heavy) boots and played on a grass pitch.

(gasp) I never even thought about that …

The same fan seems to find it quite natural, however, that an urban basketball player will grow up playing on asphault blacktop his whole life and then struggle when making the transition to hardwood.

Not long ago, we used to chart the passing of the seasons by our relationship with the earth (planting, growing, harvest, winter seasons). Today, however, we chart our passage through the year by the various events on the sports calendar: the SuperBowl gives way to March Madness, which gives way to Spring Training, which gives way to NBA and NHL playoffs, which gives way to the Boys of Summer, which gives way to the return to school and the start of college football, which gives way to the Fall Classic, which gives way to the college bowl games, and back to the SuperBowl.

As an extension of nature, this made a great deal of sense. For example, the cooling air of the autumn harvest and the beginning of college football seemed to be made for each other. However, technology has distorted this "natural" relationship: domed stadia allow us to play bowl games in the dead of winter, while artificial ice allows the NHL playoffs to extend well into June. Other technologies similarly divorce our sporting selves from any relationship with the earth's ecosystems.

Once again, Baudrillard illuminates this post with an aphorism of his own: "Snow is no longer a gift from on high. It falls precisely at those places designated as winter resorts."

To quote myself: "The recidivism rate for fitness club members has less to do with any inherent weakness and more to do with a hysteria of aging, as the mirror image and video image diverge, never again to cross paths."

However, Baudrillard scoops me again (grrrr):

The obsession with becoming slimmer and slimmer is an obsession with becoming an image, and therefore transparent, an obsession with the disembodied ideality which is that of film stars. Disembodiment is the price paid for immortality, extreme slimness being the only way to pass through death (Fragments: Cool Memories III).

Not coincidentally, this hysteria is most apparent in the image-saturated post-industrial societies of North America, where the Baby Boom effect is greatest — and where it is about to reach its apex.