Can you beat them? Ja! Si! Da! Oui! YES YES YES!

Photographed by Phillippa Thomas for Global Player

As a lead up to the Beijing Summer Olympics 2008, three uniformed table tennis players will pull a custom built table tennis table around the streets and public spaces of five British cities. Strengthened for purpose and fitted with a towbar for ease of pulling, the table is a specially designed art object constructed by sculptor John Packer (www.johnpacker.com) out of recycled bicycle parts. On the table’s surface is an abstracted global map transforming both its journey through the city and each match played into a community performance event. This is the launch tour of the Global Player project which is primed to reach all corners of the globe in the next 4 years. Visit www.blindditch.org/globalplayer for details of stats and video highlights. 

Current Global Players speak German, Italian, French and English and in the true spirit of international sport will be building up their adrenalin in their mother tongue. Passersby will be cheered on to challenge the Global Players for game after game with winners having their edited video highlights uploaded onto the project’s website. 

Collaborators: Volkhardt Müller, Paula Crutchlow, John Levack Drever, Cat Radford and Daniel Harris from Blind Ditch with associate artists Augusto Corrieri and Tim Dollimore. 

Funded by Exeter Arts Council England and supported by Exeter Phoenix Incubator, Chapter in Cardiff, The Basement in Brighton and Plymouth City Council.