1st August 2008
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8th August 2008Augusto Corrieri's blog
Roles
Written by Augusto Corrieri
Saturday, 09 August 2008 11:11
We are on the breakfast show (Radio Devon). The radio interviewer asks us if he can use the term “ping pong”, or whether this upsets us, seeing that we are professional table tennis players. He is rather confused when we tell him we are not players at all, that we are in fact artists, theatre people, and this is an arts project.
Global Player and its interesting “confusions”: of roles, of the official and unofficial, of sport and art, of public and private spaces.
For two days in a row we play against members of the local police force, who are of course dressed in full police uniform.
I am astonished at their ease in taking up a game of table tennis whilst on duty, patrolling the streets of Exeter and Plymouth. In the first case, we are parked with our table on the Exeter high street, just outside from a shoe shop; we are not blocking the way, but I would have expected to be moved on by the police: instead they stop and play table tennis with us.
In the second case, in Plymouth, it’s a double: a police man and woman against Volkhardt and Tim. Just before the match begins, the police woman speaks into her police radio: “yes, hi, we are just playing table tennis…”
Clearly there is a sense of something being put aside (roles, rigid maps of behaviour), in favour of the game, the social gathering: the police players all enjoyed being seen to play table tennis in their uniform, temporarily inhabiting a different role, showing off something more personal and less authoritarian about them.
I guess that’s the pleasure that, in general, a sporting game is capable of producing: our “real” roles (police men, artists, security guards, council officers, etc) are loosened and suspended for a while, so as that a different kind of game (in this case table tennis) can take place.
Fractured thoughts
Written by Augusto Corrieri
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 19:45
At night, when lying in bed, all I see is my right hand holding a bat, practicing the “under cut”.
Damn, we are losing, we are losing badly. At night all I see are white balls keeping me awake.
Uniforms
Written by Augusto Corrieri
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 19:32
The uniforms we are wearing… people automatically think we are advertising or selling something. As we set up the table, it feels like we are there to sell. Strange.
The uniform is an intense blue and orange. In Brighton we play in front of the new Sainsbury’s in the new England quarter. People automatically assume it’s a promotion of some kind (the Sainsbury uniform is a lot like ours…). When we walk into the Sainsbury to use the toilets, we are approached by a shopper who wants to know about the car park.
I realise this kind of disguise has its advantages. To the casual officer (policemen, security guards) we appear to be working for a company, which of course is reassuring to many. “Oh, it’s not a bunch of arrogant protesters or artists causing trouble; they are just people hired by a company to promote something…”
Global Player and the Guildhall guards
Written by Augusto Corrieri
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 19:21
This was one of my favorite journeys, day 2 of the Global Player, in Exeter.
Tim says: "let's go to that glass corridor that connects the two parts of the shopping centre". We make our way, spotting two large security guards on the way, who strangely do not see us. We quickly get to our spot, a passage way inside Guildhall shopping centre. We open the table, and begin playing. It takes the guards at least 10 minutes to spot us, to say something into their walky-talkies, and stroll over to us with that typical guard/cowboy walk. They say we can't stay there, because we're blocking the corridor (that was only partly true). Guards 1, Global Player 0. But by talking to them we manage to turn a potentially absurd or nasty situation into a rather friendly one: Tim asks them where they think we should go and play; they are taken aback, and begin to help us out… The situation is turned on its head, diffusing any conflict between us. Guards 1, Global Player 1.
The security guards advise us to go to the shopping hall square further up. But once we get there and set up, a different guard arrives and says we cannot stay there, nor anywhere inside the confines of the Guildhall Shopping area. Guards 2, Global Player 1. We begin to make our way, but only to turn a corner and set up again to start playing (we want to see, I guess, if we REALLy cannot play there). This time the guards are firm, they realise we’re testing them, and they repeat that we cannot play inside the shopping area. Guards 3, Global Player 1. At this point we walk right to the exit of the shopping area, and set up immediately outside it, literally just past the line that separates the pavement (“public”) and the shopping area (“private”). We set up on the pavement and begin playing, and from there engage, over 2 hours, net to a busy road, in repeated games with different members of the public. (See pics)
So we went into the heart of a problematic space, a “non” space, such as a shopping centre, made of indoor and outdoor spaces, and we were gradually gently forced out of it, right to its edge… Hence the idea, for next week, of playing through the shopping precinct of Exeter, Princess Hay, with the table moving at the same time.