WEBVTT

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(gentle music)

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- The first time I experienced
a basketball game was

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at Madison Square Garden,
probably around 1999.

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I remember less about the specific game

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or even what teams played.

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It was more just the atmosphere,

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the drastic shifts in scale,

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the feeling of smallness when
you're a part of a crowd,

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but also the monumentality
of the athletes.

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There's something, to me,

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really moving about the relative nakedness

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of athletes and just the amount

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of spectatorship focused on their bodies.

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It was definitely a transformative moment.

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I was sort of looking at it

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like an alien from an
outsider's point of view,

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abstractly and maybe almost
like anthropologically,

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and developing that interest,

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it's been a series of
unfolding revelations

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of the machine, the
infrastructure behind the image.

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It's like an onion

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and I'm still in the
process of unpacking it.

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(soft upbeat music)

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(crowd cheers)

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Sometime in the early 2000s,

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I got this invitation from faculty members

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at the University of Georgia
to come and give a lecture.

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I did a little research on the university

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and realized that they were one

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of the top four schools for
college football in the US.

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I told them I'd love to come down,

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specifically with the thought

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that through the art department,
I might explore the culture

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of a real American football school,

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having no idea what
that really meant except

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that it looked like a
really intense culture.

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I had this initial experience where,

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in the midst of the game happening,

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there was this shiny thing
in the corner of the stands

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and that was the band

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and I was immediately like, "What's that?"

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(upbeat band music)
(indistinct chatter)

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- Brian suggested going for
a little bit wider shot,

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since we can't get that close.

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- And so I quickly became fascinated

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with exactly what they were doing

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in the context of the game.

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(crowd cheers)

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(Commentator speaks indistinctly)

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- The title "Red Green Blue"
refers to the color components

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of the broadcast image.

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As an artist, in a way, my interest is in,

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not sports per se, but sports as one scene

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for the moving image
and mass entertainment

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and what I'm doing is moving
a viewer's attention around

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the stadium by presenting
juxtapositions of images

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that are normally not in
a broadcast of a game.

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(indistinct radio chatter)

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But see, that's our kind of good stuff.

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- Okay, 'cause sometimes
I'll be right here.

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- I had eight cameras at each game.

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Three of them were in static positions.

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The other five were roaming cameras

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and they were shooting
in 30 second increments,

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trying to get the maximum
variety of details.

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So this is one of the establishing shots

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and it just shows.
- So who's that?

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Is that the band director?
- That's the band director.

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(upbeat band music)

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(Paul laughs)

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- [Band Director] It's that last song,

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we're gonna pick it right back up.

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Yeah.

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- [Paul] The kind of
texture and experience

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of being inside the stadium,

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it's all running off of a script

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and there's a person in the control room,

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which is at the other end of the stadium,

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and their official title

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is the Director of Fan Experience.

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- [Commentator] Bulldogs,
it's first and fifteen.

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- Hey, but in all seriousness,
if we do score here

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and they go to a player,
let's knock out Jersey Mike's.

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- [Paul] Really, they're curating

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or choreographing the experience

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of the game on many levels.

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- [Commentator] Touchdown Bulldogs.

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(crowd roars)
(upbeat band music)

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- [Paul] So the musicians are a part

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of the spell of the game.

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(upbeat band music)

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- [Band Director] Two,
two short PA, Dixie Land.

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- The band director,

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he would talk about
how he was purposefully

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slowing it down, creating
a swelling crescendo

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of sound during say like,

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you know, "America the Beautiful,"

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and you could literally see people start

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to cry as this happened.

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You're seeing the machinery operate.

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(upbeat band music)

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It spoke of a self-awareness

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of inciting emotion in this crowd.

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I began to just really think
of it as like the production

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of a kind of mass ritual,
almost like a religious ritual.

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(whistle blows)

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(crowd cheers)
(upbeat band music)

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I think of art as the finger that points.

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To me, there's a value

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of becoming more conscious
of the manipulation.

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My agenda is in a way to call attention

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to that process of mediation.

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(upbeat band music)
(crowd cheers)

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Whether you love or hate football,

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it's a big part of American culture,

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and so to me, in the end, a football game,

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its familiarity makes it an
interesting ground to unpack.

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To take something that's the most familiar

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and to defamiliarize it becomes a process

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of breaking the spell.

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To produce almost like
a kind of disturbance.

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(upbeat band music)

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(crowd cheers)
(insects chirp)

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(insect chirping continues)