Hi Aliette, empyreans
As I am in Paris at the moment and as Aliette has already mentioned
it's hard to escape football and of course the fortunes of les bleus.
I watched both the semi final and the final at the Stade Charléty here
in Paris and I feel I got an insight into what Roger M. Buergel means
when he talks of the 'ecstatic dimension to it – a freedom for new and
unexpected possibilities' . The photographer Jurgen Teller made a
video a few years ago consisting of a fixed camera watching him as he
watched Germany play in the World cup. Divorced from it' s context
it's very amusing watching him lose all reason but that's what
football is all about. Watching France play surrounded by thousands of
french fans reflecting the diverse backgrounds of the team, a team it
seems that embody so much of the political issues that are important
in France today. But when the ball kicks off all that matters is the
game and you are exposed to some form of bare life where the highs are
ecstatic and the lows terrible but all that matters is the moment and
there are no differences, no class, no colour just for that moment.
Then it all comes crashing down in an instant as it did in Berlin when
Zizou walked off the pitch taking French hopes with him and we all
left to be greeted by phalanxes of riot police batons drawn and ready
for action.
But it is all worth it for those moments and those moments are what I
search for in art.
Conor
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