Body
Mats & Super Slams
Sport, Sound & Violence
Notes
for talk
INTRODUCTION
1.
Contextualize 'sport'
2.
Explain 'net' of
references used in the talk
3. Aim - to support the physicalization of drama
FLASHDANCE - 1983
d. Adrian Lynne
1.
The body liberated - degravitized by the atmosphere
of air being energized by music
2. Reference Leni Reifensthal's OLYMPIA (1938 - Winter Olympics - Song
of Youth)
3.
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly - their relation to objects; their
percussivity as they sound everything within the dance space
WRASSLING
SHE-BABES - c. 1955
1. Asynchronism
Extenuation of contact points
2.
Strategic bodily contact and management
3.
Audience dismebodiment
WORLD
SOCCER 1994 - USA VS. SWITZERLAND
1.
The arena for spectatorship
2.
Impossibility of contact = the thrill of contact
3.
Energy pulses and energy flows which block contact Audience waves
of asychnronism 'prelay' as
they surge like wind over a wheat field
4.
The G-Spot of mass tacility -Goal!
5.
The idealization of contact, reduced to the node of impossibility
JASON & THE
ARGONAUTS - 1963 d. John Chaffey (spfx Ray Harryhausen)
1.
The giant on land - the leg/foot as tom and the land as drum skin
2.
The negation of sound-through-air by sound-through-ground
3.
The listener as tree receiving root frequencies
EVELYN
GLENNY IN RIO - 1986
1.
The tuning of the skin + the feedback of harmony
2.
Evelyn learning salsa for Rio Carnivale by holding a cheap portable
casette recorder
3.
The myth of sophistication via the ear - body-hearing
is a skill as well
PRO-WRESTLING
SECRETS EXPOSED - 1999
1.
The ring as drum skin
2.
The ring as theatre - the origins of the amphitheatre and its
audience
3.
The amped ring as grostesquerie in sync with bodily
excess
GODZILLA
VS. KING KONG - 1962 d. Ishiro Honda
1.
Toho monsters as tag-team wrestling
2.
The land as ring - a la Sumo giants
3.
The stamping as sonic marking; the sumo ring as inverted
perimeters of the western wrestling ring
4.
Toho witness-and-commenator
functions as characters commentate
5.
Mention how Kong was
captured via live drums miced live to him while he sits atop the
imperial palace
KING
OF THE RING - 2000
1.
Current state of WWF - extreme theatre and grotesque
artifice
2.
Note collapse between real and fake due to
the bodily skills required - compare
this to the bombast of percussive incidents which dramatically
pinpoint something that may be entirely of no organixc
consequence (ie via the predetermined narrative of
the game)
3.
Mention shift from original MTV-cartoon style 80s
WWF into the post-Rock'N'Wrestling
GANGSTER
SOLDIER - 1968
1.
Drama and violence: detailing points of impact
2.
Western notions of synching temporal envelopes with
moral envelopes - censorship
rules of relish, etc.
3.
Japanese 60s genre cinema and
the fusion of graphic points of physical impact with
heightened dramatic curves and envelopes
4.
Zato Itchi
and The Blind Swordsman cycle
5.
Notions of Bluntness
in Japanese violence
LADY
WHIRLWIND - 1973 d. Feng
Huang Starring Angelo Mao
1.
Outline plot and 'deep thrust' technique (original
title)
2.
Note reverberant sfx - indoors outdoors - perhaps
the sound inside the body
3.
Reference reverb and
psychobilly snare - pre
western containment of sound via modern recording
technologies
FIST
OF THE NORTH STAR - 1986 d. Ashida Toyoto (from Burosnon & Tetsuo Hara
manga c. 1984)
1.
Mystical psycho-punch - beyond time and
space Bodily scale and bodiy damage
NO.1
CONTENDER - Technohead 1995
RAMBO GOES IN - DJ Bomber 1995
1.
Teutonic
body beat - mega super slam sfx
Mention oompah music and soccer hooliganism
2.
Note tempo and collapse of speed into body
punches a la FIST OF THE NORTH STAR
3.
Note layers of distortion - 808
boom, digirtal sample clipping, fuzzbox,
compression
4.
Mention end-point of Gabba as the launch of digital
absraction (glitch, etc.) as shards from
Techno and Gabba's decimation.