The architecture of game is a work of art that transforms humans into works of art. The edifice determines the rules of the game that is played in its territory, as one cannot necessarily dribble a basketball on a football field or play hockey on a baseball diamond. The edifice is built to showcase the abilities and aesthetic possibilities that nature has endowed the human, as we view sports with an eye for the visceral. We see the muscle, the speed, the agility much the same way as we see animals in the wild. Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the most intimidating defenders in the NFL at present, looks like a lion on the hunt when he pursues an offensive player.
“Anything you can do...”
There’s something inhuman about athletes “at war.” Athletes seem to come from a place in nature where the animals come from; they appear from a place of natural ability or “god-given talent.” (We often disregard the time that athletes spend training and honing their skills.) The athletes, while they’re in the midst of sport, are not ordinary people; they’re phenomena with numbers on their chests and names on their backs. They’re moving pieces of art. The edifice is the exhibit. The reason for colorful uniforms in sports is less to differentiate one team from another, but to draw the eye to the players. The uniform adds to the art. When people play pickup basketball games, there’s no need to distinguish teammates by using different uniforms. People look different and we recognize one another by looking at each other. We know our teammates from the opposition. The United States Olympic rowing team would still be the United States Olympic rowing team if the colors they wore were gold and green instead of red, white and blue. The rowers would be the same. Only the colors would change. It’s a Warhol moment, surely, but it’s still the same team. The uniform is for the athletes and the spectators. Something about the Oregon Ducks’ many football uniforms just makes people feel a certain way.
There are more where these came from...
The players are excited to put the uniforms on. The recruits are going to Oregon because the uniforms are cool. It’s the feeling the colors bring, as Grosz indicates that “[in] the case of battling birds, many territorial struggles are primarily theatrical, staged, a performance of the body at its most splendid and appealing...” (68) The Oregon Ducks have won the theatrical battle as soon as they’ve entered the stadium because the creators of their uniforms understand that the look is half of the battle.
The architecture of game draws the eye to the human body as it does amazing things in the chaotic realm of sport where anything in the confines of the territory (physical space and rules and expectations of the game) can happen. The exact opposite can be said about games that are played outside of manmade edifices. Rock climbing or off-road biking, for example, are games in which athletes who are made of more human “stuff” than their coliseum-corralled counterparts are out to conquer nature. The eye of the spectator is looking at the beauty of nature and questioning whether the athlete can win. “Is the athlete more impressive than the nature that he or she aims to overcome?” is the question that we might ask. The athlete in nature becomes a work of art only in defeating nature. If the athlete loses, if he or she doesn’t reach the peak of the mountain, he or she is forgotten while the mountain still radiates its beauty. The athlete playing against nature had best not lose, or he’ll relinquish the possibility of attaining athletic beauty. The athlete who performs in the confines of the architecture of game is always beautiful, like art in an exhibit.
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