Diagram from Eichberg (1998), "Body Culture as Paradigm: The Danish Sociology of Sport," in Bale, J. and Philo, C., Body Cultures: Essays on sport, space and identity. London: Routledge.

The segmented and unsegmented world of theatre and sport (from Bale, 1994).

Let us consider each vector of digital representation at the modern sports space as a thread of what I have termed the silicon silk. A quick list of these threads offers the following:

1. official score heading from scorer's table to a central database
2. score is then syndicated to various web sites in real time
3. surveillance of players by television
4. surveillance of spectators by television
5. surveillance of spectators by closed-circuit cameras (Bale)
6. game replays shown on Jumbotron
7. spectators shown on Jumbotron
8. television camera feeds sent to truck
9. video truck to satellite dish
10. radio coverage
11. bar code scan for tickets at front gate
12. ticket info sent to ERP system
13. cell phone calls out of stadium enclosure
14. cell phone calls into stadium enclosure
15. wireless ordering of food/concessions from spectator seats
16. wireless access to real-time in-game stats
17. aerial surveillance photos in football
18. scorer's computer to the Jumbotron and smaller arena scoreboards
19. scores from other arenas on in-house scoreboards
20. technologies to produce virtual graphics like the 1st-and-10 line in football
21. a referee's use of instant replay during game
22. speed radar gun in baseball
23. RFID chips to measure offsides in soccer
24. RFID chips to measure race times in marathons and other road races
25. GPS technology attached to golf carts

We cannot forget other affiliated threads of silk, which vector away from the chrysalis only to branch back and return again. These include videogames, fantasy sports, gambling markets, scouting videos and more. And of course there are others, some of which I am missing, and some of which haven't been realized at this point.

Does the chrysalis digitalis, the silicon silk that numbs us to conscious engagement with our sporting environment, comprise the fifth stage in Bale's evolution of the modern stadium?

A reminder to myself: while production can be mechanized, automated, and otherwise relegated to machines and computers, CONSUMPTION still requires the desire of the living human being. Thus, the thrust for human beings to live longer lives, not necessarily as "productive" members of society, but rather as "consumptive", or at the very least, "prosumptive" members of society.

Of course, it is the hysteria of aging that is one of the seeds of this desire, so we end up with up with a very profitable symbiotic arrangement, indeed.

The enclosed space of the sports stadium is to be permeated in an upcoming minor league baseball promotion:

Take me out to the ballgame, and let me play a few innings while you're at it. Minor League baseball clubs are known to have some wacky promotions, but the July 16 game at Community America Ballpark in Kansas City, Kansas, is truly unique. Two gamers will get the opportunity to play the Xbox version of Electronic Arts' MVP Baseball 2005 on the park's big screen to determine the score of the first two innings of a game between the home field T-Bones and visiting Schaumberg Flyers. After two "virtual" innings, the real teams will take the field and continue the game where MVP left off. The gamers will be selected through a tournament being held at local CompUSAs, which are co-sponsoring the event.

(via GameSpot, thanks to MurDog)

Game 3 of the NBA Finals, with the scene shifting to Detroit: to "honour America" and the 29% of the players not from the United States, Stevie Wonder offers us a "Motown"-inspired rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, using a harmonica. Incidentally, Wonder also has a new album coming out shortly, whose logos may be found etched on the blind musician's glasses.

I actually saw a young kid wearing a Darko Milicic #31 jersey yesterday. I presume that the kid was being punished by his parents or something.

More to sing about from the NBA Finals: In the latest production of cultural Americanism, Kelly Clarkson graced us with a tele-anthem live from Iraq before Game 2, as NBA oldies paraded the league trophy around in front of the soldiers.

It is no longer enough to pay tribute the nation's servicemen and women before every sporting event of (televisual) import. Now we must use satellite technology to collapse space, so as to merge the sports spectacle with this mediated war effort.

Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals last night, Alanis Morissette sung the U.S. national anthem, her first performance of the song since becoming an American citizen. Not coincidentally, she will be on ABC's 20/20 tonight to promote her new album and tour.

(ps. You Oughta Know that Canada is part of the Americas, as far as I am aware.)

From McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto (#230):

Sometimes what is demanded of the politics of representation is that it recognize a new subject. Minorities of race, gender, sexuality — all demand the right to representation. But soon enough they discover the cost. They must now become agents of the state, they must police the meaning of their own representation, and police the adherence of their members to it.

The reason I write this is that it reminded me of a keynote address I attended recently by Mark Tewksbury, former Canadian Olympic swimmer and gold medalist. Tewksbury, an openly gay athlete, is Co-President of the organizing committee for the 2006 1st World Outgames, and is a champion for gay rights in sport as a Director of the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA).

I asked Mark after the presentation if GLISA planned to become a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). I said that I wanted to know if there is a paradox, philosophically, between GLISA trying to eradicate the types of policing of body sexualities and identities that affect its constituents, while at the same time policing an "ethical" (read: drug-free) sporting body. Wark's passage seems to highlight the challenge, in my opinion, of GLISA joining the "mainstream" sporting bureaucracy.

ESPN.com has an article on retired NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski, who may best be described as the prototypical NFL football player as cyborg athlete-cum-war metaphor.

Romanowski quote: "The game is not good for you, it's not good for the human body. I wanted to offset as many of the bad side effects as possible. Not only did I want to be the best out on the field, but I wanted to be able to handle the kind of trauma the body endures."

He did so by becoming a sort of mad scientist of his own body, with treatments including massage; hyperbaric chamber sessions; proper nutrition; vitamin, mineral and enzyme supplements; acupuncture; intravenous therapy; and proper sleep. He pushed the boundaries regarding steroids and other drugs based on what could be tested for in the NFL drug policy, and he employed over 10 different body specialists at a cost of about $250,000 a year.

Romanowski quote: "I would have been out of the league probably by my sixth year to my eighth year had I not done what I did. Injuries would have caught up with me. What happens is, your body is an amazing compensator. But if you don't address things, eventually you would break down."

Instead, Romanowski played a mind-blowing 16 seasons of devastating football, starting 243 consecutive games. Complications arising from a number of concussions ultimately led to his retirement.

Romanowski quote: "The last three years were brutal as far as the concussions. I had to overcompensate and push myself to a new level, but I was actually doing more harm than good."

Resample:

So long as injuries are biomechanical — with an emphasis on the "-mechanical" — then we can still conceive of these (cyborg) athletes as machines, churning out plays, points, statistics and wins; they are assets belonging to the team that may be replaced at any sign of deficiency. If, on the other hand, we are forced to confront the humanity of a serious neurological injury, we must shake ourselves out of our narcotic slumber — if only for minute — and realize that these are flesh-and-blood human beings playing an extremely violent game to quench our collective bloodthirst on Sunday afternoons, and that at any moment they are only a play away from being paralyzed, brain-damaged, or killed. It is very difficult to consume product with that kind of guilt hanging over your head.

With Romanowski's neurological problems occurring post-career, and thus out of sight, however, consumption by the lipidinal masses may continue apace.

The U.S. military increases its arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles, as reported in this Wired story by Noah Shachtman. An excerpt (emphasis added):

The F-16s had come and gone, dropping a pair of 500-pound satellite-guided bombs on an insurgent safe house in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. Now it was up to Major Shannon Rogers to see whether they had hit their target. With a tug of the throttle, he brought his plane to 10,000 feet for a closer look.

Typically, it takes hours, even days, to get an accurate idea of the damage bombs have caused in a war zone. GIs on the ground have to make their way to a target and report back. But Rogers can get the job done in minutes.

As his plane passed over the site of the safe house, dawn was breaking - a clear, sunny morning that had yet to give way to the August heat. But for Rogers, it was after sunset. He was operating his Predator unmanned aerial vehicle - a drone - from a secure terminal at Nellis Air Force Base, near Las Vegas.

Tracking the feed from the Predator's camera, Rogers could see rubble where the safe house had been. He and a sensor operator on his crew watched a crowd gather to ogle the destruction. Then a white Dodge pickup rolled up with a .50-caliber heavy machine gun in the back. Five men climbed out, ran into the house, and returned to move the truck to a secluded alley. They began loading ammunition and arc-welding the .50-cal's mount.

Back at Nellis, Rogers wasn't limited to just assessing battle damage. He could also inflict it; his Predator was equipped with two Hellfire laser-guided missiles. Rogers, who flew F-15s (call sign: Smack) before switching to drones, radioed for authorization to destroy the Dodge. He got it.

"We left their truck one big smoking hole," he remembers. "My heart was pumping as we were doing our business. It felt just as real to me, however many thousands of miles away, as if I was sitting right there in that cockpit."

Rogers' Predator is one of more than 1,200 UAVs in the US military arsenal; three years ago, there were fewer than 100 in the field. Today drones as small as a crow and as big as a Cessna are searching for roadside bombs, seeking out insurgents, and watching the backs of US troops. They're cheap, they can stay in the air longer than any manned aircraft, and they can see a battlefield better - all without risking a pilot.

(via Defense Tech)