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This article was downloaded by: [Loughborough University] On: 02 May 2012, At: 03:21 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Cultural Values Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcuv19 The beautiful game and the proto‐aesthetics of the everyday David Inglis a & John Hughson b a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen b Principal Research Fellow at the Division of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wolverhampton Available online: 17 Mar 2009 To cite this article: David Inglis & John Hughson (2000): The beautiful game and the proto‐aesthetics of the everyday, Cultural Values, 4:3, 279-297 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14797580009367201 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/ terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 Cultural Values ISSN 1362-5179 Volume 4 Number 3 July 2000 pp. 279-297 The Beautiful Game and the Proto-Aesthetics of the Everyday David Inglis University of Aberdeen John Hughson University of Wolverhampton Abstract. This article provides a critique of the postmodernist notion that there has been of recent years a dissolution of the divide between aesthetics and practical activities, between Art and Life. It does so by considering the game of soccer from a phenomenological viewpoint, which shows that the game possesses intrinsically 'aesthetic' qualities. The conditions of possibility of such qualities are understood by introducing the idea of the 'proto-aesthetics' of soccer and other mundane phenomena. By considering the proto-aesthetics of the quotidian we argue that recent changes in the nature of practical life should not be regarded as due to 'aestheticisation' but rather as springing from processes of commodification. A recurring theme in contemporary analyses of culture is that everyday life today is characterised by its profoundly aesthetic impulses. Given the multiplicity of forms of mediated symbolism and the phantasmagoria of advertising aesthetics to which audiences are subjected each day, it is possible to regard mundane existence as now being thoroughly saturated and impregnated with the imagery and emblems of mass-mediated art (Featherstone, 1991). Given these increasing levels of aestheticisation of the realm of the quotidian, that locale itself is arguably transfigured such that it becomes extraordinary, displaying itself not in 'commonplace' fashions, but in the excessive, hyper-real terms of postmodern culture. The aestheticisation of previously routine phenomena can be seen to have contributed to, and perhaps consummates, the destruction of previously impermeable divisions between Art and the 'popular' (Huyssen, 1988), and between the exceptional phenomena of Culture and the customary and practical things of everyday life (Baudrillard, 1988). The notion of the 'aestheticisation' of both everyday life and the prosaic phenomena which constitute it, has therefore become a key component of analyses which claim that Westerners are now living in a fully-fledged post-modern cultural context. Yet this very term ©Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000,108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX41JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, USA D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 280 David Inglis and John Hughson 'aestheticisation' remains relatively vague and undefined. In the most general sense, processes of aestheticisation can be understood as involving a situation where 'Life' becomes 'Art'. But such a view rests on a fundamental assumption: namely that before the rise of post- modern society, 'Life' was indeed 'Life', being practical, prosaic and ordinary, and possessed of no aesthetic components whatsoever. Before post-modern society made its appearance on the historical stage, it is assumed that 'Art' was indeed 'Art', self-enclosed, autonomous and resolutely non-practical. While 'Art' concerned itself in icy self-regard as to the lofty matters of Culture and Aesthetics, 'Life' got on with its own resolutely pragmatic concerns, dealing in businesslike fashion with matters resolutely worldly. In the pre-post-modern condition, everyday existence was quintessentially profane, lacking the sacrament of the aesthetic that would permit it entry into the sacred realm of the Artistic. This paper wishes to take issue with assumptions like these which lie behind claims as to the implosion and confusion of the aesthetic and practical realms in contemporary Western societies. Through examining a particular case study, that of apparent changes in recent years in the nature of the game of soccer, we will argue that the supposed division between 'Life' on the one hand, and 'Art' on the other, was always profoundly permeable even before the alleged rise of post-modern society and culture, and that the realm of practice has always been deeply informed by aesthetic processes. We will explicate these claims with reference to the notion of the 'proto-aesthetic', the aesthetic potentialities that lie beneath the surface of even the most apparently quotidian objects such as soccer play. Our major contention will be that theorists of post-modernism often adopt misleading terminologies to describe contemporary cultural developments, resulting in the misrecognition of processes of the commodification of key aspects of everyday life, by designating these under the apparently more 'positive' argot of 'aestheticisation'. We will show how, in the particular case of soccer, that the 'making artistic' of the game has resulted not in a conflation of aesthetics and practicality, but is in actual fact one dimension of wider trajectories towards the progressive commodification of the free expression of creativity that lies as a fundamental aesthetic potential within sporting practices. Soccer and aesthetics in post-modern society Claims as to the post-modern aestheticisation of everyday life in general have often been applied to one particular aspect thereof, the field of sport. Genevieve Rail (1998), for example, has argued that there has occurred an 'implosion of art and sport' (p. 143). Contemporary sports are characterised by 'appropriation and reproduction of ... artistic and D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 The Beautiful Game 281 aesthetic forms [which are involved in] hyper-consumption of sporting goods and images'. The creation and distribution of impedimenta emblazoned with the insignia of particular teams has led to a situation whereby 'magazines, billboards, T-shirts and other unconventional places have become privileged artistic premises' (p. 145). In this light, arguably it is the case that the 'beautiful game' of soccer has in recent years been subject to the very same processes of aestheticisation as have occurred in other realms, both sportive and non- sportive. It could be contended that the predominant feature of soccer today is the colonisation of this realm by elements of artistic culture. According to commentators such as Steve Redhead (1997), soccer has now entered 'pop time', adopting and adapting to the frenetic rhythms of the market of cultural goods, which are created, sold and rendered obsolete. Teams are marketed as and in sellable forms, soccer's essence thus being fundamentally reconstituted along the lines of the glossy product and the aestheticised object. Team strips are sold as badges of identity in a transient world, at the same time as soccer is rendered as the theme of pop songs and popular novels (Giulianotti, 2001). As the game becomes aestheticised, new temporal cadences come into being, destroying the older tempos of the sport, such as the dedicated fan's long-term devotion, in favour of the more fleeting interests of the consumer. If the aestheticisation of soccer has changed the nature of the sport itself, then so too may such a process be regarded as having fundamental implications in wider society, namely that many different aspects of 'Life' truly are becoming more and more like 'Art'. Arguments as to the 'aestheticisation' of soccer are of course not without plausible elements, for it is undoubtedly the case that soccer has over the last two decades come under the close scrutiny of the Culture Industries and those who are their creative acolytes (Giulianotti, 1999, pp. 88-91). Btxt the terminology in which such claims are made is often too loose to authentically capture what truly occurs in terms of the contemporary relationships between soccer and other mundane institutions on the one hand, and the sphere of the aesthetic on the other. The argument above hinges on a crucial 'before' and 'after' form of assumption: namely that, prior to recent developments, soccer and other everyday cultural forms resided in a wholly non-aesthetic realm. This world of practical, rather than creative, action seems to resemble a 1930s black-and-white newsreel world of dreary Saturday afternoons in rain- swept football grounds, with players in long-shorts being glumly watched by working-class men in flat caps. The world into which soccer has now emerged, however, seems to be a bright and sunny one, inhabited by players with 'interesting' haircuts in brightly-coloured strips, being viewed by a classless, mixed-gender, mixed-race satellite television audience, only too keen to purchase and to exult in soccer- related cultural accoutrements. D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 282 David Inglis and John Hughson These images are both superficially compelling and yet, because of their very opposition, wholly static, for they are unable to grasp the nuances hidden in both the 'before' and 'after' snapshots, especially the former. The assumptions of the 'aestheticisation of soccer' arguments fail to recognise that even in pre-post-modern days, the game of soccer was always fundamentally aesthetic and that the very essence of the game is an 'aesthetic' one. Recent arguments such as Redhead's tend to focus on aspects external to the game, to the detriment of recognising the fundamentally aesthetic nature of the internal dynamics of the game itself. It is not then a case of the game of soccer becoming aesthetic, but rather of it always-already being aesthetic, or as we shall term it, both 'aesthetic' and 'proto-aesthetic'. The play of the game is itself informed by a series of aesthetic practices, and it is to an explication of these that we now turn. Beauty in the game How is it possible that soccer could be a fundamentally aesthetic activity? There is a long history of debates as to whether sports in general are truly of their very essence 'aesthetic'. A classic statement in this regard is that made by David Best (1995). Best's argument is important in the present context as it both refutes the commonsense idea that sport is akin to art, whilst arguing that sport has inalienable aesthetic qualities. According to this position, although any phenomenon (e.g. soccer, table lamps or mountain vistas) could be regarded from an aesthetic point-of- view, that does not make those phenomena intrinsically possessed of aesthetic qualities (p. 378). Thus any attempt to claim soccer is aesthetic merely on the basis that it can be perceived that way, does not prove that soccer intrinsically possesses aesthetic qualities. Nor is sport inherently 'artistic' as some are wont to claim. Best maintains that sport is not 'artistic' in that art is non-purposive, whereas sport is purposive: sport always involves an 'aim', whereas art does not. However, within the claim that sports are 'purposive', a distinction can be made between sports that are more or less purposive (Best, 1995, pp. 380-81). Sports that have a high degree of purposiveness are those whereupon a given end can be achieved in manifold ways. Soccer is one such sport: the main point is to get the ball in the net, whereas the style of play utilised towards that end is secondary. Sports that have a lower degree of purposiveness have a greater requirement in terms of the style of performance; more precisely, the style is the point. An example here would be gymnastics, whereby the contestant is judged solely on the basis of the style of her performance. Thus although both types of sport are purposive and therefore not artistic, the latter form is possessed of aesthetic capacities insofar as the performance is judgeable in terms of D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 The Beautiful Game 283 style. The stylistics of the sport are not merely potentially viewable as aesthetic in character, but intrinsically are aesthetic. If soccer falls into the former category of purposive sport, does this mean it completely lacks all aesthetic elements? Best denies this, claiming that although soccer and other sports are fundamentally oriented around a purpose (of scoring goals and so on), they are not devoid of aesthetic elements. The aesthetic aspects of soccer and its ilk rests in the forms of play that can be entertained within the context of the game. That is to say, while the aim is to score a goal, the means whereby play towards that end is achieved is to a degree dependent on stylistic (aesthetic) grounds. The aesthetic element of soccer play is premised on 'actions which ... approach ... the ideal of totally concise direction towards the required end of the particular activity [i.e. goal-scoring]' (Best, 1995, p. 382). That is to say, soccer play has its own aesthetic logic. A form of play meets the criteria that qualify it as aesthetic if it forms a 'unified structure which ... [is] the most economical and efficient method of achieving the required end' (p. 383). Not all forms of soccer play can meet these criteria of 'economy' and 'efficiency'. Only certain examples of play effect a 'smoothness' and 'flow' which exhibit a concise capacity of motion that does not waste energy on 'extraneous' movement. Only those forms of play which exhibit the characteristics of concision and fluidity can, on Best's argument, qualify as truly 'aesthetic'. On these grounds certain, but not all, forms of soccer play are truly aesthetic because of the concision and fluidity of movement they embody. In this sense, then, soccer z's aesthetic insofar as these forms of play are potential within it. Soccer is overall an aesthetic phenomenon in that it contains an aesthetic element within it, at least potentially. We would agree with this characterisation. However, Best's argument focuses on forms of play, not on types of player. If we truly wish to understand the aesthetic dynamics of soccer, then we must attend to how certain types of player embody the precision play that qualifies as meeting the criteria of the aesthetic. The Player-Artist The aesthetic qualities of soccer play are most clearly made manifest by players at the peak of the professional game. These star players are the aristocracy of the footballing world. It is in their movements that are embodied the forms of play which are truly aesthetic. If the play of the star player meets the criteria of economy and fluidity of movement that makes such play aesthetic, then that player must be judged as an 'artist'. This artist creates by calling upon a palette of playing skills, which are utilised by a body that weaves lightly around the canvas of the pitch. In soccer parlance such a skill is known as the silky touch. This form of D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 284 David Inglis and John Hughson creation is well described in the following thoughts attributed to the former star player Eric Cantona: To create the moment. To step out of time. To create space from nothing. To be truly spontaneous. This is the fate of the [great] footballer. He must be surrealist and realist, a magician and a scientist. (Blacker and Donaldson, 1997, p. 155) Thus we may augment Best's position by stating that the aesthetic qualities of soccer rest not just in the potential for aesthetic play, but also in the potential for that play that lies within the player-artist. Just as not all play is aesthetic, so too is it the case that not all players are potential creators of aesthetic play. Whilst aesthetic play is not the exclusive province of the star player, we may say that a criterion of becoming a figure of that latter type is that an individual is possessed of the skills that would qualify him or her as a player-artist Thus all star players are player-artists, although player-artists need not be star players. In sum then, the star player is a player-artist, and the player-artist's form of movement is characterised by its concision and flow. Thus we know what the player-artist does, but we do not as yet know how his or her actions are made possible. Entering hidden spaces To truly understand the aesthetic aspects of soccer play, we need to inquire as to what are the conditions of possibility of the aesthetic play of the star player/player-artist. In an obvious sense, the realm of the player-artist is that of the soccer pitch itself. It is on and through the pitch that aesthetic play is made possible. How then should one interrogate the nature of the pitch? The issue of the spatial contours of the pitch is crucial here. We could examine this arena in terms of the genesis of the relatively highly-structured form we are familiar with today, out of the relatively unstructured pitch of the pre-twentieth century game (Bale, 1994). But this would to be focus on the characteristics of the pitch (the line markings of goal, side, centre and so on) from a perspective external to the pitch, rather than on how its aspects are experienced by the player-artist, aspects which impinge upon him or her in the generation of forms of aesthetic play. This requires a shift from an external perspective vis-a-vis the pitch, to a reconstruction of how the pitch is viewed and experienced by the players located therein. In order to do this, we must shift towards a phenomenological analysis of the pitch as it is felt by player-artists (Morgan, 1993). Thus in order to penetrate the world of the player-artist we must focus on the spatial aspects of the pitch that the player-artist typically 'occupies' and experiences, aspects D ow nl oa de d by [L ou gh bo ro ug h U niv ers ity ] a t 0 3:2 1 0 2 M ay 20 12 The Beautiful Game 285 which thus make possible his or her aesthetic play. We must also phenomenologically investigate the perceptual and practical structures through which the player-artist creates aesthetic projects within those spatial locales. If the star player is a player-artist, where should we look on the pitch to find this maestro? We suggest that the prime locale into which to gaze is