POST Modern Art in Relation to Sport

Post Modern Art in Relation to Sport Daniel Shorkend Wizo-Ner Bloomenfeld School of Design, Israel Abstract: In this article, I develop the implications of the Post Modern "language turn" first for art and then applied to sport. The combined idea of ineffability and meaninglessness seems to pervade art and post-modern sports. There is a sense of heightened body culture in contemporary sports that draws from a philosophical and art-aesthetic her-itage. I then end with a model that suggests the dialectic between art and sport that i believe could be a sub section or parralell the better known relationship, namely that between sport and science or sports science. Keywords: Postmodernism, Art, Sport, Aesthetics, Meaninglessness, Inclusivity, Dialectic If one takes as a starting point the post structural 1. Postmodern art shift marked by the “language turn” that meaning is de- The “language turn” and Derrida‟s postulate of the “other” centred, de-ferred, mere traces rather than locate the of language, means that the postmodern paradigm un- meaning of the word (or image for that matter) as corre- der-mines notions of the “grand narrative” or a me- sponding with a particular referent or interpretation, then ta-narrative. In this light Connor (1992:120) writes: culture begins to reflect that in terms of plurality of dis- “Postmodernism rejects foundationalism, essentialism courses and narra-tives, detotalising, inclusivity and at and transcendentalism…truth as correspondence and the same time a relativism, and a lack of core identity. representational knowledge…they reject realism, final The “language turn” has implications as far as art (theory vocabulary and canonical descriptions”. Thus, this deto- and practice) is concerned within postmodern culture, talising means that what is significant about art and in- namely the duality of, on the one hand, detotalising crea- deed the very reason art serves a useful function that tive play and ineffability, and/or, on the other hand, a need not be reinterpreted and translated “back” and “into” potential sense of meaninglessness. Sport, as one in- language, is precisely because of a quality that cannot be stance of postmodern culture, likewise can be viewed via articulated, namely its ineffability. In this respect one can the lens of the “language turn”, especially as it, like art, also speak art as eliciting metaphorical language (1). In is not necessarily an “authentic” expression, a natural addition, there is a certain freedom and “play” (2) that and innocent game (an original point), but is embedded this “spatial other” allows, in a sense, that signs and in a culture where commodification, consumerism and symbols now function within a framework that is not idealistic image-construction is the order of the day. centred in a definitive language or a system of “given Nevertheless, sport may offer much in the way of articu- signification” or as a description of an already theorized lating bonds between people over-and-above native “reality”. Finally, the “play” (struggle) of language and tongue. Consequently, as with art, one may discern the its “other” means that postmodern art and culture seek to place of sport in postmodern culture as engendering the restore imbalances, rather than the valorisation of one dual aspects of 1) ineffability and/or 2) meaninglessness. term to the exclusion of another, and so seek the “voice” I shall explicate these concerns below using specific of the silenced “other” and an agenda of inclusivity (3). sports to make things clearer and take as an axiom that These three notions will be developed below as aspects art whose handmaiden is often philosophy also exhibits of the “other” or in verbal terms, the ineffable. these features or more precisely because it does it is no surprise that other cultural expressions do so likewise. 2. Methods and results Copyright © 2019 Daniel Shorkend doi: 10.18282/iss.v1i1.179 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Insight - Sports Science Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 1 meaning…”, this may point to the instability of circum- 2.1 The ineffable scribing the signifier within a definite language game. Language itself gives rise to the non-lingual and the “other” of effability. Art‟s ineffability can be under- Another way to perceive the metaphorical play of stood by the concepts of metaphor, freedom and “play”, images and/or words is to recognize the difference that and inclusiveness, insofar as metaphor is a subtler way of analytical philosophers draw between different senses of not saying what something is; freedom and “play” is a creative way of not settling for hard and fast finality, and inclusiveness implies a common bond, but without the humanist, discursiveness to sanction it – rather it is an ineffable quality that brings differences together. I shall the word “is” or as in mimetic resemblance. On the one hand, “is” means identity as in X “is” Y, that X and Y are necessarily the same entity. On the other hand, “is” specifies that X and Y are not identical but contained within the same set, so that they share in Wittgenstein‟s terms, a develop each of these implications of the “language turn” “family re-semblance”. Metaphor belongs to that second for art and culture in what follows. category in as much as one is not equating two seemingly disparate concepts, but rather suggesting a confluence, 2.2 Metaphor a similarity, while they remain distinct entities. For ex- Metaphor (is) the likening of one thing to another in ample, to draw a likeness between a painted tree and the varying degrees of expansive connection between that notion of, for example, a life generating principle is not one thing and that of the other. Metaphor is distinguished to say that the latter concept “is” the tree in terms of from literal language and thus a literal correlation be- identity, but merely pointing to a shared aspect of both tween a thing and its description, that is, the thesis of such concepts. This renders the metaphoric play of art correspondence thinking. Potgieter (2007:58) writes that akin to a type of “fuzzy logic”[] and “paraconsistent log- “… whilst it is true that the metaphoric instability of ic”[] and Gödel‟s “un-decidability”[] that coheres with language deconstructs the correspondence paradigm, it my task of demonstrating parallels and confluences be- also inaugurates an understanding of art as a place for the tween art and sport and thus constructing an interplay - creation of new meanings”, which he associates with the or a blurring of boundaries - between the two. If meta- “metaphoric from phor does function in this way, we may say that art is an Heidegger‟s (1971:62) idea that metaphors, in a sense, activity that can forge new meanings and connections. assist in establishing new, concrete worlds. That is, met- Thus, although one may not be able to say what the pre- aphors assist in imaginatively projecting, and thus creat- cise meaning of an artwork is, and an artwork is not just ing new possibilities. If we concede that the “language a discursive idea, it is emotive, imaginative, instinctive, turn” implies we do not have access to a “true reality”, aesthetic…one can offer another metaphor to engage only endless surfaces, then art is not so much a copy of with the art form. This kind of ineffability prompted Pot- the real or original, but a new aesthetic, one that embod- gieter (2007:56) to remark: “All meaning is a metaphoric ies the fractured state of signifiers that abound and that interpretation of a metaphoric interpretation”. In other could become part of a process of open-ended discourse words, though postmodernism has discredited the corre- on the work of art, both inscribed and yet not in- spondence thesis as applied to the image and/or the word, scribed by a specific language system. That is, signifiers this does not necessarily foreclose on meaning, and here may have a definite meaning (content) in the context of a I suggest this meaning is in that art may evoke a kind of specific language as a kind of Wittgenstein-like “form of metaphorical “play”. Kearney (1988:358) states that life”, but the possibility of a signifier coming to mean postmodernism may “be the twilight of great art or the something else in relation to a different set of rules and clearance of a space where alternative modes of commu- language also exists. In this respect, the signifier be- nication may evolve”. In this sense, Lyotard‟s paralogy comes disembodied from its literal (precise) meaning and (1984) comes to mind as metaphor may induce a con- functions in another way. So that when Potgieter stant changing of the rules of the game so as to inspire (2007:59-60) says that “metaphor is understood as a rela- new games and ignite a metaphorical subtlety. tion between literal and figurative meaning, transparent 2.3 Freedom and “play” paradigm of art”. He draws and vague meaning, essential and decorative meaning, concrete and abstract meaning, original and imaginative Insight - Sports Science Having acknowledged the role of the metaphor, one Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 2 can be more precise and dub this notion of metaphor as a languages. certain freedom and “play” within a postmodern context. In terms of “playing with what already exists”, one For if fine art needs no longer serve the ends of some cannot draw meanings of past art in its original “form of corre-spondence programme, whether conceived as a life”, though one can imitate the style of an earlier period, mirroring of the biblical, the classic, an “aesthetic es- which is to say “play” with style and narrative itself. sence” and so on, then perhaps one may conjecture that Thus Danto (1995) believes that painting and art history such times emphasize a certain freedom and “play”. The had reached an end point and that all that could be done “language turn” with its emphasis on “difference” im- was to revel in the freedom, that now the story of art plies that there are numerous fragments and any new exhibits no pattern. In this seeming chaotic freedom, one evocation implies an “other”, so that the “play” is poten- is reminded of Nietzsche‟s (1995:88) poetic line: “there tially without limit. Furthermore, the infinity of the sign must be chaos within to give birth to a dancing star”. Or expands and grows and adapts and evolves. One may to put it in other terms, Margolis (1999:30) makes the take an example from language from Hegel‟s “Auf- point that the final free “play” of all possible styles of hebung” where he makes the point that words transform painting is “discovering of once and for all the historical from being bodily to being conceptually clear. For ex- possibility of ever fixing a rational essence of painting”. ample: the simple phrase “I see” connotes both a sensory Part of this freedom and “play” is in the elision be- experience and means one understands something. Or tween art and “everyday” life. Danto does not seem to “sensible”, which may refer both to that which is amena- distin-guish between art from a “mere real thing”. Thus, ble to sense-impressions and that something makes sense. the ideal forms of “Plato‟s beds” for example, wherein Thus, language is embedded in both our experiences and the artis-tic version is a second or third-order copy of the intellectual abstractions, and since one cannot separate ideal concept was ruptured when Rauschenberg, Olden- the two, we cannot objectify a “reality” or separate aes- burg and Segal included real beds, for example, within thetic from extra-aesthetic considerations. The result: one the artistic framework. With Warhol‟s Brillo Box (1960) can merely “play” with the surfaces, with the realisation this goes further to the extent that the meaning of art that art is essentially ineffable, because words themselves could not be given via examples or via perception. Dan- function according to arbitrary designations and art is to believes his idea, namely that you cannot easily dis- already embedded in another language. And each lan- tinguish between art and the “everyday”, brings guage is a metaphor. With “play” we forge links between art-making and art history to an end[]. The result: art can languages, rather than perceive and conceive an absolute take any conceivable trajectory, and this allows a certain “reality”. Nevertheless, there can be a certain creative freedom and “play”, or at least an “imitation of dead freedom in this. styles” (Danto 1995:65), where art no longer has tran- Warhol, the pop artist recognized this freedom, on grounded in a decentred, unstable and changing language field and “plays” with this. This freedom has nothing to do with the right style or manifesto. As Warhol once said, you can be an abstract expressionist one day and a pop artist the next week … or a realist (Hughes 1991). This coheres with Danto‟s “post historical” thesis (1995). Danto (1995) maintains that postmodernism is less a period than what happens after there are no periods in some master narrative of art. It necessarily lacks stylistic unity and is a period “of information disorder, a condition of perfect aesthetic entropy. But it is equally a period of quite perfect freedom” (Danto 1995:12). This freedom is not born out of “innate thought”, but through the “play” of what already exists and is mediated through different Insight - Sports Science scendental value but “historical as opposed to eternal significance” (Reez & Borzello 1986:70). It is precisely in the elision of art and “everyday” life that this historicization comes to the fore, as works of art are treated as special sorts of signifiers, neither more nor less than any other tightly defined and highly institutionalized form of image, such as the advertising poster, the product label or the technical book illustration. In this sense, art‟s freedom consists in the “play” of the endless possibilities of “surfaces” with no distinction apportioned to the a priori status of the work of art drawn from fine art as opposed to “kitsch” and the “everyday”. 2.4 Inclusivity and diversity Having acknowledged “play” as the consequence of a certain chaos and instability or lack of definition as far as art is concerned and because language is open ended, Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 3 one can deduce that it is the very inclusivity implied by towards a revisionist art history. In this respect, silenced the “language turn” and the constant hankering over an voices and styles of art, for example film can become “other” that is not to be forgotten. One may posit that the part of the artistic “mainstream” and this incorporation notion of difference in language at the same time allows can aid in human understanding and communication. for the inclusion of otherwise oppressed and silent voices. Furthermore, the “decentring” of the word and/or In this respect, art theory and practice are well appointed the image means that many a sign may be linked to an- to address these imbalances. other and even in that relationship other linkages can be Ironically, these imbalances can be found to occur made so that an “other” is forever generated as the text precisely when theorists attempt to write a humanistic expands. In this way, art is a powerful tool to create in- account of people‟s “sameness” and that art (or at least tersubjective, interdisciplinary cross-overs and hybrids. It Western art) has a special role in that regard. Panofsky would be misguided to call this intertextual “space” a and Gombrich appear to give art “special status”. In a unity of differences, for one cannot perceive the totality tradition dating back to Kant and Hegel they see art and thus grasp it as a unity. At best one may say that art as bridging the gap between the sensual and the rational, is inclusivity compounded of differences. One might then as retrieving “lost” and “alien” cultures and subsuming regard this call to mistrust unities and totalizing as de- them as one‟s own which is said, in terms of modernist mocratizing and detotalizing culture. This requires the discourse, as enhancing the unity and composure of self. undoing of hierarchical systems. In this sense rather than This allows for a critical procedure that traces historical a “grand narrative”, one emphasizes seeming minor nar- continuity like the genealogy of motifs, and the meaning ratives. As Sim (1992:402) puts it there is a “Multiplicity of a work of art as the reconciliation of conflicting ele- of little narratives, all of which have their own integrity ments. The “new” postmodern approach, however, is to and sense of importance, but none of which can be con- construct a narrative or halt the existing narrative where- sidered to take precedence over any of the others. Grand in art is not part of the solution, but part of the problem, a narrative is held to dominate and suppress little narra- kind of “ideological baggage”, be it bourgeois, racist or tives and is therefore to be resisted”. Another more direct patriarchal. This task is one of deconstructing, a critique way of saying this is the observation that the valorisation of visual images, from paintings to pop videos wherein through art of the Western, first-world, male, Eu- the “contradictions and prejudices beneath the smooth ro-American “fine” art is a myth and that it cannot claim surface of the beautiful” (Reez & Borzello 1986:84) are to have universal validity but is itself a Western con- unearthed. The postmodern task is thus to deconstruct the struction. In this sense, the postmodern “language turn”, polarities, that is, thwart the valorisation of a dominant with its emphasis of endless differences becomes a pole, “rather than police their boundaries” (Reez & Bor- self-reflexive activity of not only maintaining a sense of zello 1986:87). In this regard, the artist does not neces- identity but realizing that one‟s identity and art is a) part sarily have privileged access to ultimate “truth”. The of “others” and vice versa and b) has no moral high pertinent question about the meaning of art is thus aptly ground. If a) and b) are maintained within artistic circles put by Reez and Borzello (1986:168): “It‟s not what does and beyond, this would lead to an inclusive and diverse it express but what does it do?” Thus, there has been a life-praxis and aesthetic sensibility. shift from the assumption that one‟s own point of view is 2.5 Meaninglessness the “truth”, that the “other” simply needed to be “edified” Thus far I have been arguing that the detotalizing to see that “truth”, to one of a critical critique of one‟s project of postmodernism derived from the “language own position and so the question as to how art functions turn” is a positive and creative paradigm shift to be cele- in culture becomes “central”. In this sense one‟s own brated. However, Potgieter (2008:53), in this rather knowledge claims become contingent. lengthy quote, points to the fact that this may not be the Once one recognizes the contingent nature of the case. While there may be distinctions of value, Potgieter, “story of art” as a consequence of the theoretical “decen- writing tongue in cheek, presents a possible implication tring” of language, the art theorist can be more inclusive of the “language turn” for art and culture: as to what counts as art (and as aesthetic), so that there is If knowledge and experience are language-bound, a postmodern reaction to the assumed teleology in art and language itself is an unreliable creation, does this not 4 | Daniel Shorkend Insight - Sports Science mean meaninglessness? Are we entering a world in one claim final knowledge about the work of art[5]. This which all hierarchical distinctions are literally exhausted may be liberating as argued above, but it may also be and lacking in authority, and in which no form of expe- debilitating for if “anything goes” then boundaries are rience can be regarded as less, or more, valuable than eroded. Consequently, there may be no logical distinc- another? A world in which we can identify no qualitative tion between a casino and an art museum as an institu- distinction between rap and Beethoven, Tretchikoff and tion of art! Manet, Wilbur Smith and James Joyce? If there are no Furthermore, the notion of metaphor does not allow external points, no positive terms, to serve as final au- one to escape to a non-conditioned unknown, because thorities in the hierarchical evaluation of knowledge, metaphors refer to the web of known signs. Thus, the experiences and values, does this mean that all things are postmodern “language turn” and the invocation of the equal and that nothing then has particular value? metaphor amount to the same thing, namely the critique The above quote reflects the concern that an “any- of the “original”, “the given”. Connor (1992:77) claims, thing goes” rampant inclusiveness attitude may mean the in reflecting on the postmodern reality that it “reflects a lack of discernment and value, for the deconstructive pluralistic, rootless society, where consumerism, prolif- mode is precisely a debunking of “discernment” and eration of media images and a multi-national capitalist “value”. Does this mean that art and the imagination economy make it unique in history. There is no privi- within the context of the postmodern have “reached” a leged position, not even that of the artist, there is no new terminal point? As Kearney (1988:252) observes in his style or world, since individual interpretations are deriv- reflecting on the “crisis of the imagination” at this time ative”. That “individual interpretations are derivative” that the “…Postmodern experience is of the demise of means that the individual subject is not in full control of the creative humanist imagination and its replacement by language so that self-knowledge is impossible. Kearney a depersonalized consumer system of pseudo-images …” (1988:253) concurs with this reading when he states: Conceived thus, I will analyse the down-side of “the humanist conception of „man‟ gives way to the an- what the “language turn” means for art according to the ti-humanist concept of intertextual play. The autonomous same categories in which the up-side was evaluated. subject disappears into the anonymous operations of 2.5.1 Metaphor means we cannot really know language”. In this respect, appeal to metaphor in art The idea that an image is no longer authentic ex- amounts to relinquishing control over pinning down a pression (Kearney 1988:3), as the individual, and the discursive understanding and knowledge, for under- image, is already part of a language structure that denies standing is “of something” and knowledge is “of some- the self as present, notwithstanding the power of the im- thing”, but that “something” cannot be defined, for it is age, implies that the veneer of “metaphor” is just another just part of the structural web of language itself, a “body” way of saying that the artwork does not mean anything, without contours. The fact that we do not have access to for meaning is forever deferred. Potgieter (2007), though a “true reality” that is not already mediated by language, not necessarily in agreement with the following possible one cannot analyse the relationship between literal and implication of the “language turn” on art, observes that: figurative meaning and consequently it is unclear wheth- “Representations of representations, works of art which er art or any language simply functions pragmatically as lose authenticity as a consequence of being mass pro- some sort of social convention at a given time, or wheth- duced, photographs of photographs, reflections of reflec- er it carries actual knowledge about the world rather than tions, parody upon parody, the end of originality and the a provisional and contingent meaning. Or if it is simply end of modernity‟s search for the “real” inner structure of an aesthetic, sensual surface. However, if one tends to art ... .” In other words, if the nature of metaphor is to regard art or any language as but a self-enclosed system, say X is like Y, and Y like X or Z and so on, one is then meaning itself is highly suspect. Appeals to the caught in the “non-presence” of the post structural web “other” of language alluded to by Derrida above does not of language. That is, if an artwork functions metaphori- act as an escape from language for that “other” is cir- cally, it means one cannot pin down a definite meaning cumscribed by yet another in an ongoing “sequence”, so and that while these “kindred associations” (Kant‟s that as it tends towards infinity, it also tends towards an phrase [1952 {1790}]) may be creative, at no point can indefinite meaning or an ongoing replication process that Insight - Sports Science Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 5 is meaningless. 2.5.2 Freedom and “play” may mean there is no “inner” substance This “ongoing sequence” of language and its “other” implies that while in traditional art (and language) there is scope for endless “play” and interpretation, it may also mean that there is nothing beneath the “play” of the sur- that which appears “deep” is but another sign that constitutes the language system. Therefore, considered thus, art no longer has claims to ontological truth. The seeming freedom of the hyperreal and the resorting to “play” in art may thus amount to very little. 2.5.3 Inclusivity may mean the lack of discernment Although to say there are “no positive terms” in face signifiers. Postmodernism undermines the modernist project of language has led to the inclusion of previously silenced the independent, individual artist-genius and the “aura” voices in art, for there is no positive term to dominate as and pres-ence of the art object through which the artist is it were. There is also the sense that with the end of the said to express his “deep, inner self”. Furthermore, lan- avant-garde comes the loss of a clear direction in art (and guage, whether visual or verbal, was considered a trans- perhaps elsewhere in life). The fact that the “real” and parent vehicle for expressing this self. As a result of the the “imagined” (or represented) are no longer clearly “language turn”, however, the artist‟s “inner” being is distinguished means that although this makes everything expunged and the work of art is no longer an authentic equal, there is no Archimedean point outside this inclu- presence from which meaning is said to emanate; rather sive differentiation from which to determine meaning the latter becomes part of a construct of power relations, and thus forge some sort of direction. Therefore, inclu- that is, contin-gent human knowledge. At best one can sivity without direction can be thought of as aimless, critique and “play” with images in order to reveal this without trust in any system. In Foucault‟s (1976) writing contingency, and just reflect that art itself is indeed an- we find the proclamation of the “death of man”, the other “surface”; at worst, one laments the fact that there death-knell of transcendental consciousness. This, he appears to be no deep structure, just endless particles argues is made cogent by “exploring scientific discourse zooming around in space so to speak. not from the point of view of individuals who are speak- Potgieter (2008) writes that the postmodern condi- ing … but from the point of view of the rules that come tion may lead to a kind of panicky schizophrenia (re- into play in the very existence of such discourse” (Fou- calling Deleuze and Guattari) for as signifiers and signi- cault 1976:88). Kearney (1988:266) writes that such a fied no longer match there is nothing absolute. The “play project is the “substitution of the postmodern paradigm of surfaces” is the order of the day and change is but of the structural unconscious for the modern paradigm of cosmetic. And cosmetic indeed! For in a world of clon- the creative consciousness … which gives priority to the ing, cyber disembodiment, mass media images, the digi- observing subject”. Barthes and Derrida too attempt to tal world and so on, experience, perception and identity critique the subject who prides himself or herself to be are constructed without re-course to “truth”. This can be the source of universal meaning. As such, postmodern construed as the “free play of the network of signs” inclusivity does not entail a conglomerate of individuals (Hans 1980:307) rather than human agency, a cause as- that together give one a semblance of “truth”, but a kind cribed to the “inner self”. Baudrillard echoes this idea of of non-presence, an impersonal “play” of linguistic signs. the subject being trapped in a network of decentred signs The result is that “creating”, and interpreting becomes a in the sense that within the postmodern condition one struggle/play of multiple fragmentation and dissipation. cannot make the distinction be-tween “reality” and sim- Therefore, inclusivity of multiple interpretations simply ulations simulations means that there is no “truth” to be unearthed in the text (Baudrillard 1988) are not simply false as opposed to the or art object. Or put another way, the extension of the real; a distinction that one cannot make for the simula- notion of the text to include everything means that the tion absorbs the real itself (Poster 1988:6); “reality” is distinction between imagination and reality evaporate hyperreality. Thus “play” of signification becomes an- and discerning what is true becomes difficult. thereof. These simulacra or other word for hyperreality, a kind of chaos drawing This kind of chaos means that ethically one is not from the “language turn”, in which there is no centre. enjoined to act in a specific way. While this may mean a Without a centre, there is an infinity of “surfaces”, and certain liberation, it also equates to a lack of discernment 6 | Daniel Shorkend Insight - Sports Science in ethical matters, which Kearney (1988:361) is well tools that provide for knowledge in the first place. In this aware of, as he states: “if the deconstructionist of imagi- sense one might describe much contemporary art and nation admits of no epistemological limits (insofar as “sub-cultural” practices as well as new age “art for living” each one of us is obliged to establish a decidable rela- (such as yoga, alternative medicine and tai chi) as well as tionship between image and reality), it must recognize sport practiced without hierarchy, in much the same way ethical limits”. He continues: “…in the face of postmod- that art of the past may have included the mechanical arts ern logic of interminable deferment and infinite regress, and in Ancient Greece the gymnasium and the arts of floating signifiers and vanishing signifiers, here and worked in tandem. But beyond suggesting a certain way now I face an other who demands of me an ethical re- of life or rather a practical, tangible kind of knowing and sponse” (Kearney 1988:361). Here, Kearney argues for a the subverting or blurring of hierarchical distinctions, “depth”, but logically, inclusivity, equalizing and hori- one can discern that much current art on offer is extreme, zontal surface “play” does not necessarily accommodate such as bodies inserted with hooks and hanging in the this response. For moral directives, for example, gallery or other venues and this can easily be linked to are based on a premise of differentiation to that it so op- the death-defying current trend commonly known as poses, but if the “other” has as much a claim to be, then extreme sports which I briefly analyse further on in this inclusivity might mean the lack of a discerning principle. chapter. It‟s a double-edged sword: on the one hand, the wish to Before analysing what may be meant by postmod- detotalize, but on the other hand, a foreclosing of a sys- ern sport, I would like to establish how much current art tem of meaning, even while the latter can be endlessly makes use of the body, which shall be described as the deconstructed ad infinitum. Or one may opt out of this “extreme body” which immediately links it with the labyrinth and claim in rather esoteric terms that the “sporting body”. Xian (2015) in the Journal of Somaes- foundation is the non-foundation. thetic (2015: 144-159) makes a distinction between tra- It is obviously beyond the scope of this thesis to in- ditional art − by which he means premodern art − and terrogate how contemporary art may instantiate the theo- modernist art. The former is concerned with beauty and ries above – how current art is ineffable, resisting theory; the ideal body according to rules and ratios of proportion, diverse, resisting categorization and subversive, pre- whereas the latter he dubs the “extreme body” character- cluding definite ways to experience it. What I would, ised by a refutation of beauty (or at least the accepted however, like to mention that much art today that makes norms thereof), an exploration of the strange, distorted direct use of the body (as opposed to indirect figure and shocking. In my estimation postmodernism has taken painting, for example, that is representing bodies) makes this to new heights and Richard Shusterman‟s innovation a case for arts (worldwide) proximity to activities such as of a sub-category in aesthetics, namely somaesthetic sport. So, we find skin pierced and live bodies hanging provides a conceptual framework in which to consider from work), the body in visual arts as determining how the body as a sub-cultural body piercing and tattoos; naked-bodies cultural issue has changed along with society. I agree around an art performance; odd water-falls (as for exam- with Xian (2015) who associates the modernist explora- ple Olafur Eliasson‟s work) interspersed at key venues in tion New York; cloud simulation machines that give off pecu- treme body” as dehumanised (strange, distorted, shock- liar aromas such as Cai Zhisong‟s “sculptures” (and other ing…), especially as it initially formed in surrealist and multi-sensory installations); digital bodily extensions and abstract art and later in performances and digital art. Yet robotics (again Stelarc is an example of this trend) and at the same time this transgressive, one might say un- improvisational dance performances (or the choreo- comfortable, aesthetic is such that “modernist (and graphed world-wide flash mob art happenings at desig- postmodernist) artists view the body as an object (and nated social arenas). These interventions suggest a coun- subject) that needs reconstruction and deformation to ter movement away from conceptual art, from art as idea push the limits” (Xian 2015:158, brackets my inclusion). towards a sensory-perceptual awareness (aesthesis), So that while traditional, pre-modern art holds the body ameliorative strategies such that knowledge is sought in art in sacred reverence where the viewer is evoked to through the body, rather than alienated from the very admire (even in the case of crucifixions), in modernist hooks (for Insight - Sports Science example Stelarc‟s and postmodernist continuation of the Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 7 and postmodern aesthetics the “body is meant to help people reflect, explore and question” (Xian 2015:158). Many sociologists feel that there is a rise in body In art, this was sensed with the modernist repudiation of the traditional exemplified initially in Dadaism and later con-ceptual art; pop art‟s inclusion of mass culture (Ryynanen 2015) and I conjecture that somo – culture, later still the transience of performance and in- the living body – captures this sentiment. I would argue stallation art and the digital revolution whereupon per- it is precisely sport as an aesthetic, cultural phenomenon haps no image is sacred and rare (though this perhaps that exemplifies this. Moreover, it is precisely the agitat- contradicts the immense price tags for actual esteemed ed, extreme shock value invoked which counter much art artworks and in sport, the almost idolising of sports stars). of the past that determines an “extreme body” – again I would endorse the reas-sessment of the “traditional” reflected degrees. and it is in such a climate that art and sport can reasona- er body building, the elite swimmer‟s physique, the ath- bly be understood as merging – the global village or the lete, the wrestler – these “body types” are a certain re- global construction is a contour that we cannot trace. The configuration of the body to ac-tualise what the mind non-presence of the sign – the fading image – and inclu- wills, and is integral to a society where adaption, replica- siveness of all signs including the “extreme body” − tion, subjectivity, enhancements and extending beyond to could be seen as a practical consequence of the “lan- achieve records or maintain a body with a specific func- guage turn” and its consequences for culture. in sport in various tion. Thus, one may say that arts‟ representation of the body and in more recent artistic practice, the direct 3. Discussion use of the body is such that some art forms parallel the 3.1 Postmodern sport: Ineffability enormous popularity and the pushing beyond the limits If the “other” of language is the body in relation to Even at a level where art the mind, then the latter‟s employment of reason is given and sport are more about play rather than fierce competi- sensual expression via the body. The body then is not tion, for the viewer, one can make the argument that with simply an embodiment of mind, but has itself a reason, the sophistication of digital technology, the body or a logic grounded in biological processes. While one (stretched skin…) navigating in can understand these processes to an extent, bodily- uncharted realms, giving us “eyes” and “ears” and “play” is also trans-rational. Therefore, sport, that is bod- “touch” beyond our immediate surroundings (as sport, ily- “play” is ineffable. This is particularly true in a for example is broadcast via satellite world-wide) and art postmodern context, where the number of sports/games is said to be pervasive so that play, aesthetics and increasingly “side-step” being quantified. Examples in “body-consciousness” appears to be the order of the day. this respect are NAS-CAR racing and extreme sports Whether this is wholly positive is debatable.[6] One which I have chosen to look at briefly as instances of the point, however, is that taken to extreme levels of distor- ineffability of contemporary sport. Thereafter I argue for tion, intensely abstract (digitisation) and aesthetic play a “poetic imagination” derived from Kearney (1988) and without a coherent system, may be damaging. It is in this apply this reading to sport generally with the intention light that even as I argue that sport is art-like, this does that the “bridging capital” of sports constitutes a “ration- not entail a necessary good. It is in this respect that som- al” that is ineffable. evident in competitive sport. has become stretched aesthetic with its emphasis on “healthy living” and a Macgregor (2002) argues that NASCAR is the possible return to beauty without notions of autonomy in quintessential postmodern sport. In postmodern society, art and unchanging truths − at least in the fixation on everything is transformed into a saleable commodity and imagery − may redeem the situation. The moving body therefore NASCAR is the “…central postmodern meta- in sport, the body in flux and motion, the body reaching phor: racing ever faster in circles, chasing a buck” (Mac- for a certain goal, the ephemerality of our games suggest, gregor 2002:2). The ineffability is in the latent postmod- on a philosophical level, that it is the living body, not the ern overtones. That is, in the “racing ever faster in circles” static image that may lead towards healthy living. In there is a form of “play” that seems to go no-where and these respects, sport in turn offers art an image of beauty yet may be captivating in that kind of ineffable redun- without an image! This is similar to the non-presence of dancy. the sign postulated by the “language turn”. 8 | Daniel Shorkend Ironically this “ineffable redundancy” can be seen Insight - Sports Science to be aligned with commercialism. Commercialism is so ple the nationalism of fascist Germany of the 1936 Berlin openly and honestly embraced and celebrated so that Olympics). They are intrinsically inimical to spiritual and “NASCAR is an immanent semiotic system critically mysterious encoun-ters. Postmodern sports such as isomorphic with Post Modern society” (Macgregor NASCAR, however, enter the realm of the immanent 2002:2). Fans can drive the brand of car driven by their (Macgregor 2002:17). In postmodern terms, immanence favourite drivers. Post-modern life is often character- “refers, without religious echo, to the growing capacity ized by a desire to participate in such image-dominate to generalize itself through symbols” (Hassan in Mac- experiences. Furthermore, the narrative of NASCAR‟s gregor 2002:18). In postmodernity languages (symbols) colourful background means much to the sport. NAS- extend our senses, recasting na-ture into signs of their CAR could hope for nothing more during its current own making. Nature emerges as culture, and culture success than to be identified with the authenticity of the turns into an immanent semiotic system (adapted from newly virtuous, rural South so that myth and profits go Macgregor 2002:17). Macgregor (2002:19) concludes: together. In the identification with the car of one‟s choice “NASCAR isn‟t just a postmodern sport. It is an imma- and the combining of rural mythology with profits, the nent semiotic system”. This semiotic system in question ineffable is that which is both a contemporary fixation plays off the ineffable with the fetish of objectification or with the high-tech and the mythologized past. commercialism. One says it is ineffable for the fan may In terms of a “mythologized past” postmodern live a more “authentic” life through the racing car hero sports such as NASCAR provide validating myths that and the hero himself is said to be more himself (“authen- rival those of the religious spheres. Postmodern athletes tic”) when he is racing. In other words: the fan can have reconstitute the mysterious (the ineffable) into a mystic a more heroic image of the self which he or she may sphere of their own making. Earnhardt, a famous NAS- identify as “true” (authentic) and the sports hero may CAR driver, “did not perform to honour G-d; his perfor- only truly feel himself or herself when engaged in his or mances were evident in themselves that he was G-d.” her chosen sport. (Macgregor 2002:9). The number “3”, for example, Another sport which reveals a certain ineffability is which may have religious con-notations, is emblazoned that of extreme sports, an alternative (“other”) to tradi- on the driver‟s jacket and one could argue that it acts as a tional sports. Redei (2002) argues that a common feature semiotic premise so that “signifiers become abstracted of post-industrial societies, as symptoms of postmodern from the signified” (Gartman in Macgregor 2002:17). life is individ-ualism, post materialism and alienation The “3” is a consuming image, and as such exemplifies (between natural and artificial environments). Redei the postmodern vision where the ability to reproduce the (2002) makes the point that people engage in extreme disembodied appearance of things portends a vast market sports to escape the mundane, the monotonous, habit and in images. More importantly, the market value of the routine, in contrast to over-regulated, competition-based image gets magnified, or synonymously, made spectacu- and masculine dominated traditional sports. In this way lar, through the process of mass production and distribu- the extreme sportsperson demonstrates his or her differ- tion. With Earnhardt as with other elements of postmod- ence from mainstream society (an “other” of mainstream ern culture sacralising articulations are used to distance sports). But more than that, the prime motivation for the text from its superficial status as a commercial prod- such engagement is to accomplish a sense of aliveness uct. In this sense, the ineffable is maintained even as and emotional satisfaction which may be described as an consumerism takes root. attempt to do something in which an ineffable experience To analyse the matter further, namely the ineffabil- is made possible. To put it in other terms: extreme sports ity of NASCAR, one should note that pre-modern sports are a means whereby one tries to “grasp” life itself so were at-tached to the “realm of the transcendent” that the ineffable mystery of one‟s own life is brought (Gurtmann in Macgregor 2002:26). Offering contests to into sharp focus which can then reinvigorate the more the gods could be a way to appease them. Athletic festi- controlled aspects of one‟s “normal” existence. vals were forms of worship (for example, Ancient Extreme sports often defy the traditional assump- Greece). Modern sports, by contrast, were played for tions about sport, namely spectatorship and commercial- their own sake or for some other secular end (for exam- ism, so that the individual or group may take risks with- Insight - Sports Science Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 9 out public awareness. These risks may be extremely erwise possibly disliked “other” which Markowitz and dangerous, thus denying the simple polarity between Rensmann dub “bridging capital”. Sports thus may have “reality” and the imagined, safe world of sport or be- the power to cut across all national and cultural bounda- tween the seriousness of life and the game that is sport. ries and transform identities. Markowitz and Rensmann As such, extreme sports defy objectification and mar- (2010) even argue that postmodern sports have the power ketability and in the search for an ineffable experi- to topple political powers “from below”. Thus far from ence, breaks the usual codes separating life from sport viewing sports as the opiate of the masses, they write: (art). This is taken further in the recent book by Kidder “we regard their contemporary global presence as anti- (2018) where he explores the risk-taking sport of Parkour nomian forces that challenge encrusted sources of domi- in postmodern culture, where run-ning, jumping, climb- nation” (Markowitz & Rensmann 2010:30). Thus, post- ing, vaulting and flipping through city streetscapes as- modern sports may oppose fundamentalism (without sumes great interest to passers-by and is extremely dan- itself being fundamentalist or intolerant). Because sports gerous. It also is a highly popular utube phenomenon, a rules are arbitrary, they can be said to be value neutral particularly postmodern expression. and therefore readily accepted and understood across From the two examples above, it becomes evident cultures, nations, communities and classes, bringing to- that the sign-language of certain sports, whether em- gether “human collectives that often do not want to un- bracing commercialism or not, is essentially about want- derstand each other otherwise” (Markowitz & Rensmann ing an “authentic” experience, or in other words: a sense 2010:30). One may thus assert that the artistic postmod- of the ineffable. Another way of arguing for the ineffable ern “turn” wherein a utopian world view is opposed on is by making the notion of “poetic imagination” as de- the grounds of its simplistic universalism and flawed fined by Kearney (1988), apply to a reading of sport, reasoning, may allow a space for the embracing of a whereby the ineffable of sport is a function of the capac- shared humanity through sports, without a metaphysical, ity to feel for the “other”. epistemological or moral edifice to be adhered to. How- Kearney (1988:368) writes: the logic of the imagi- ever, this lack of structure may tend to the meaningless, nary is one of both/and rather than either/or. It is inclu- the subject of the following section. sive, and by extension, tolerant: it allows opposites to 3.2 Postmodern sport: Meaninglessness stand, irreconcilables to co-exist, refusing to deny the The postmodern language “turn” means that all claim of one for the sake of its contrary, to sacrifice the signs operate together but that their structure is complex strange on the alter of self-identity. Later he writes and shifting. In this regard, distinctions become blurred (1988:369): The language of the unconscious, expressed and this may result in a decentred self and by extension, at the level of the imaginary and the symbolic, is the sporting body (for example distinctions between the portal to poetry. Poetry is to be understood here as the “authentic, natural self” and self-expression in say, extended sense of play of poesies; a creative letting go of sport). the drive for possession, of the calculus of means and Butryn (2003) writes that there are tensions within ends. It allows the rose – in the words of the mystic Sile- many world-class athletes between modernist notions of sius – to exist without the why. Poetics is the carnival of the “natu-ral” body and postmodern conceptualization of possibilities where everything is permitted, neither cen- corporeality. By this he means that in postmodern terms sored. It is the willingness to imagine oneself in the other our “hu-manness” has been altered by intimate, available person‟s skin ...”. and seemingly unavoidable engagements with technolo- Applied to postmodern sport one may argue that gy, and therefore that humans should be reconceptualized Kearney‟s “sublime intimation of alterity”, of imagina- as posthumans, or cyborgs. As such the boundaries be- tion, may en-hance a sense of global unity. Markovitz tween humans, animals and machines are tenuous. Iden- and Rensmann (2010:2) observe that “hegemonic sport, tities are thus constructed and reconstructed through as part of popular culture, play a crucial role in shaping hu-man-technology interfaces. The “21st century self is more inclusive collective identities and a cosmopolitan no longer characterized by a singular identity, but an outlook open to complex allegiances”. In watching the assort-ment of politicized and fractured cyborg „selves‟,” “best of the best” it may enhance acceptance of an oth- writes Butryn (2003:17-18). He says this as in identify- 10 | Daniel Shorkend Insight - Sports Science ing the original “I” whose performance we want to en- which is a Eurocentric dating system, one not subscribed hance, may be difficult. There is no clear separation be- to universally; while one mile is the British unit of spa- tween the natural and the artificial, whether technologi- tial measurement derived from the “Roman lineal meas- cal innovation, at a certain point, pollutes and takes away ure of a thousand paces” (Oxford English dictionary) a certain “authenticity” or whether, as in modernist in- which is a traditionalist rejection of the rationalism rep- strumentalism, technology is seen as value-free and neu- resented by the metric system. So that one may question tral. In the lat-ter sense, technological progress is deemed the meaning of “recorded” sports history at least as an to be societal progress, a liberation from time immemo- ideological (political, religious…) bias, rendering facts rial, and opti-mistic. This latter conception is particularly somewhat meaningless. relevant in a postmodern context of scientific “pro- Another side of this “meaninglessness” may be gress” but at the same time may render meaningless “the gleaned from the commercialism of sport and thus the athlete”, the “I” that performs at a high level precise- “inauthenticity”, the lack of innocence of sport. We live ly because his or her identity and humanness is called in a world saturated with sports imagery. Wallis into question. (1984:80-82) writes that the “death of the author” (Bor- As early as 1964, Ellul , for example, argues that ges) and that meaning is in the interpretation of the sport is a total “extension of the technical spirit” (in viewer/reader (Acker) for the com-pletion of the artwork Butryn 2003:34) and that the emphasis on quantification or texts (Crimp, Owens) as opposed to the special and efficiency which manifests itself in the performance world/value and time of the art-object and artist (Krauss) ethos of elite sport precludes non-instrumental sporting – lends itself to the proliferation of images of sports. This practice (the enjoyment of sports for the innocent and is so as with the denial of the sacredness of art, the “in- natural enjoyment and spiritual growth) or the kind of trusion” of images from the mass media, that of poetic imagination that Kearney (1988) appeared to ar- sport becomes the new means with which to assert the gue for as elucidated above. Eichberg (in Butryn 2003:32) celebration of the body, of global culture and a discourse noted that historical trends towards technologization has that is understood (or enjoyed) by the majority. As Wallis often been accompanied by „green‟ movements and it (1984: xviii) writes: “Our society, supersaturated with remains to be seen whether track and field, and elite information and images, not only has no need for indi- sport in general, witness a concerted back-lash against viduality, it no longer owns such a concept”. Sports im- increasing cyborgification, and concludes quite omi- age after image confirms the desire to obliterate the sub- nously that “given the prospects of genetically enhanced ject, like the Greek Khouri, copies after copies and so the competitors, robot competitions, and virtual reality sport, modernist valorised polarity, that is the “original”, is the infinite and fractured images of the cyborg will be played down. Rather, the surface, the bodily, the machine, highly relevant, if not vital, to those working within sport the repetitiveness is given its due which can be said to sociology and sport studies in general” (Butryn 2003:36). find “a parallel” with Warhol‟s emphasis on surfaces, In this sense, sports at the high-end level may be ren- repetitiveness, art as business and shallowness. Thus, the dered a kind of meaningless, anti-human and commercial abundance of sport and the abundance of images around cultural form. sports, minimizes the meaning that can be found in sport Another aspect of the meaninglessness of sport de- (consider a once off marble sculpture of a great athlete as rives from its ideologically, relativistic nature. By this I opposed to innumerable photographs of the same athlete mean that if we should say that say Roger Bannister was in a newspaper). the first four-minute miler who achieved this accolade on Thus, sport is fated with what Baudrillard (1988) 6th May 1954, one may note that this “fact” is not so described as objects dominating subjects divesting them “innocent”, so “authentic”. If one is politically correct, of human qualities and capacities, their sign-value masks we may call the choice to focus on his success as op- seeming control and individuality. Modern societies are posed to the many “black” record-breakers of shorter organized around production and the consumption of distances at the time, racially biased. Furthermore, the commodities while the postmodern is concerned with date is not objective. It follows the Gregorian calen- simulation and the play of images and signs. Postmod- dar by year, the month by the Roman goddess Maia ernism is about “dedifferentiation”, implosion, and hy- Insight - Sports Science Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 11 perrealism. In terms of the latter, we might say that en- tor/ress. This lack of clarity could be a lack of meaning- tertainment, information and communication technolo- ful content for in what sense then is “an athlete” real! gies elevate sports experience as more than the quotidian. This lack of a “reality” means that to say that post- Sports events can be experienced as more real than real modern sport is only a matter of celebration and sensual and may even influence thought and behaviour. In the creativity or its ineffability, is only half the story. ensuing (Baudrillard The body can also be seen as a contested region of the 1988:25), “the subject becomes a pure screen, a pure personal and the political as Foucault warns: “The body absorption and reabsorption surface of the influent net- is also directly involved in a political field; power rela- works” (Baudrillard 1988:27), thus the participant and tions have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, spectator alike experience a sort of non-self while en- mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to gaged in sports. It is the spectacle itself, the hype itself perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (Foucault 1976:25). which leads to such feelings; a feeling, I would argue Through discipline (the productive and subjected body) that is without “centre”. It can be described as vacuous, and control for economic use, the body is maintained by meaningless. Yet, our culture keeps adding to these the production and circulation of discourse. For example, empty experiences, sports event after sports event where there is the perennial patriarchal disciplinary power that the climax of a victory (or defeat) never quite satisfies so pervades sporting culture. Furthermore, this is fuelled by that the next season or match or tournament beckons in a the working on the seeming individualism of “desire”, meaningless circle going no-where. via the mass media so that sport and the body offer icons “ecstasy of communication” The “individual”, influenced by the media, tech- of youth, health, beauty, excitement and personal “free- nology, and the hyper-real (match after match …) pro- dom”. All this really is an inundation of consumerism duces what Baudrillard (1988) described as a “narcoti- which, I would argue, is as a direct consequence of cized”, “mesmerized” media-saturated consciousness sporting practice. I believe that this consumerism is in- wherein there is no “reality”, only mirrors, no depth or sidious to the extent of rendering “authentic” sport verg- essence. The cultural tide seems to be a seeking after the ing on the meaningless. spectacle rather than meaning and this is nowhere more 4. Conclusion evident than in the sports event. One may, nevertheless, 4.1 How does this comparison result in an enriching dialectic? impute the beautiful to the sports spectacle, a kind of aesthetics of the “kitsch” or the aesthetics of the eve- Having argued that both art and sport in contempo- ryday, which is to “elevate” sports to the category of the rary culture reflect both positive and negative aspects, “beautiful”. One can find “parallels “in art and see pop one can ask the question whether this results in an en- art as a kind of aesthetic precursor in this regard; so too riching dialectic. In this respect, one can imagine a mod- the prominence of the body in Fluxus, as with the disso- el to define a rela-tionship between art (theory and prac- lution of the “thing itself” and art in the form of the tice) and sport (theory and practice) derived from the “ready-made”. From such examples, sport becomes an postmodern “language turn” that tends towards the infi- exemplar of the mass (re)produced, the “kitsch” and the nite, though with finite pockets of “knowledge” ([human] aesthetically hybrid. Even conceptual art is influential understanding[), rather than this detotalizing as poten- here as it opposes the “will to form”, with a non-sensory tially, on the other hand at least, as signifying meaning- experience perhaps akin to the disembodied experience lessness. In this sense, an en-riching dialectic between art of watching sports as the self is dissolved in the abstract and sport is set in motion. form projected onto the television screen or even in live game with its rules, geometric structures and fantasy take 4.1.1 A deduction: A model of the ence between art and sport derived from the postmodern “language turn” hold. In this way, the body is rendered a cultural and Figure v shows a relationship between art, sport and symbolic “entity”. In this light, one is pressed to call the “language turn”. All “three elements” are circum- sport any more a real reflection of “reality” than art and scribed as one text. But to be true to Derrida that text has therefore in eroding the boundary between art and sport, an “other” beyond it and it too is circumscribed by a in what sense then is a sportsperson an athlete or ac- larger text. Together the first text and the “other text” are sports, as the imaginative, patterned construct that is the 12 | Daniel Shorkend Insight - Sports Science circumscribed by “language” which becomes itself an- inglessness within a postmodern context might emerge. other “text” and so the sequence continues indefinitely. At the very least it should yield a measure of under- Now, “stemming from” the “other” (text) is the duality of standing concerning the overlap between art and sport art theory and art practice (“practice” being the “other” arguably as a result of post structural theory. In this way of “theory” or vice versa). And in accord with this thesis, one might envisage an inter or transdisciplinary venture there is some relationship or comparison to be made be- and a riposte to talk of an “essence” or “purity” of defi- tween art and sport so that from art theory is “extended” nition and functions as pertains to art and sport. sport theory and from art practice is “extended” sport practice (sport “theory” is the “other” of sport “practice” or vice versa). But it is not as simple as that: Art practice could be the “other” of sport practice and vice versa or art theory could be seen as the “other” of sport theory and vice versa. Furthermore: art practice could be the “other” of sport theory and vice versa and sport practice as the “other” of art theory and vice versa. All this is indicated on the model and has been given some “depth” in the comparative analysis of the confluences between art and sport. We shall now have to define how that dialectic is enriching? It is precisely because there is such a dialectic that continues to iterate itself that we may speak of creativity, that it can elicit new meanings (even if one such meaning References is that it is meaningless). The fact that this dialectic can- 1. not hold to absolutes, to an “ultimate reality” and the like, Baudrillard, J. 1983. The ecstasy of communication. In postmodern culture. Foster, H (ed). Translated by J. Johnston. Port: Bay, pp does not mean everything is reduced to the same value- 126-134. less muck. If this model holds some semblance of approximate accuracy, then it acknowledges that, since the 2. Baudrillard, J. 1988. America. London: Polity. “self”, the word or image or movement is decentred, that 3. Baudrillard, J. 1994. Simulacra and simulation. Michigan: Ann Arbor (University of culture (art or sport) makes us as much as we make it. As Degenaar (1986:108) puts it: “man is a meaning-giver who cannot disengage the meaning he creates from the Michigan Press). 4. process which brings it forth”. I am aware that the model is an impossibility for the Baudrillard, J. 2000. The vital illusion. New York: Columbia University Press. 5. Butryn, T. 2003. Posthuman podiums: cyborg narra- “process” is moving and changing so that “circles”, “ar- tives of elite track and field athletes. Sociology of rows”, la-bels and the reading of it as if sequential, hier- Sport Journal 20 (11):17−39. archical (art “before” sport) is off the mark. There is 6. Degenaar, J.J. 1986. Art and the meaning of life. no beginning point to this dialectic. What one can say is Published paper. Cape Town: that it involves duality, rather than monism so that Department of Adult Education & Extra-mural meaning (or the lack of), based on the conception of the Studies of the University of Cape Town, “language turn” with its notion of “difference”, is a result 7. Degenaar, J.J. 1993. Art and culture in a changing of the “play” of one thing “as opposed” to another. This South Africa. S.A. Journal of duality allows for a range of possibilities like the deci- philosophy 12(3):51−56. mals between integers. In this respect art and sport as 8. Press. can be said to exhibit similarities. With that insight, the common postmodern duality of ineffability and mean- Foucault, M. 1976. This is not a pipe. Translated by J. Harkness. Los Angeles: University of California two different signs (tending to one integer or the other) Insight - Sports Science 39−46. 9. Kearney, R. 1988. The wake of the imagination: Volume 1 Issue 1 | 2019 | 13 ideas on creativity in western culture. London: Hutchinson. 10. Kidder, J.L. 2018. Parkour and the city. Rutgers University Press. 11. Macgregor, J. 2002. Dale Earnhardt and NASCAR nation. Sports Illustrated (July 1). 12. Markowitz, T. & Rensmann, L. 2010. Gaming the world. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 13. Redei, C. 2007. Motivations for participating in lifestyle sports. Lucrari Stiintifice, Seria 1, XI:76−89 14. Wallis, B (ed). 1984. Art after modernism: rethinking representations. Boston: David R. Godine. 14 | Daniel Shorkend Insight - Sports Science