Pete Phillips | University of Chichester (original) (raw)

Papers by Pete Phillips

Search Party is the collaboration between live artists Jodie Hawkes and Pete Phillips. In 2007 we... more Search Party is the collaboration between live artists Jodie Hawkes and Pete Phillips. In 2007 we started making Search Party vs… - an interactive, durational performance exploring our reoccurring interest in sport. We’re fascinated by sport; in narratives of the sports event, the relationship between task and failure, fandom and the sporting gaze, and how these ideas can be used as strategies for creating, framing and performing live art events. We make performances for theatres and public spaces and our sports related practice has existed in both contexts. Search Party vs… takes place in public and is predominantly concerned with a desire to engage with the inhabitants of public places, creating performative contexts which generate shared endeavor. Existing somewhere between mass public spectacle and intimate 1-on-1 performance, Search Party vs... borrows the notion of team from sport to examine connections between the personal and the geographic, exploring ideas of community, pla...

The thesis uses performance to elucidate the politics of sports commentary. In contrast to Willia... more The thesis uses performance to elucidate the politics of sports commentary. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of their independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the thesis argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority within sporting broadcasts. This written thesis and the Practice as Research articulates and critically contextualises the performance of sports commentary resulting in the production of a postdramatic theatre performance referred to as PhD Practice (2016), DVD documentation of the live event, a script and critical writing. Focusing on the commentary of the charity fun-runner in the Big City Marathon (BCM) the thesis uses Fischer-Lichte’s notion of performance as event (2008) as a framework to examine how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequ...

This paper uses the languages of contemporary performance to propose a new model for the analysis... more This paper uses the languages of contemporary performance to propose a new model for the analysis of sports commentary. Scholarship that has considered the performance of sports commentary, from Bryant, Brown, Comisky & Zillman (1977a, 1977b, 1982) Frederick et al. (2013), and Whannel (1992) all position the role within a dramatic tradition, examining the practice through traditional dramatic structures. Whilst these analyses highlight important features of the dramatic content of sports commentary, the use and frequency of ‘dramatic’ language, the focus on enmity or on particular narrative drives, the dramatic form doesn’t fully account for the performative mechanism of the sports commentator – what the commentator does. The paper proposes the consideration of the performance of sports commentary from a post-dramatic theatre (Lehmann, 2006) tradition inviting new ways of exploring the impact of sports commentary as part of the broadcast spectacle of professional sport. Reframing th...

The paper explores sports commentary as an alternative narrative form that provides insight to th... more The paper explores sports commentary as an alternative narrative form that provides insight to the contemporary world. The stories of sports commentary articulate how neoliberal ideology is embedded in popular culture. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the paper argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority through the use of specific narrative strategies within sporting broadcasts. Focusing on commentary of the fun-runner in the Big City Marathon (BCM) the paper uses Fischer-Lichte’s notion of performance as event (2008) to examine how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequently perceived. The paper considers the narrative strategies of the sports commentator (Whannel, 1992) as an event of text (Turner, 2009), t...

The paper considers sports commentary as a performance that reframes the meaning of sports events... more The paper considers sports commentary as a performance that reframes the meaning of sports events. Focussing on the BBC live commentary of fun-runners in the London Marathon, the paper explores how sports commentary articulates this spectacle of mass participation through the lens of capitalist charity, reframing fun running as complicit with neoliberal ideology. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the paper argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority through the use of specific performative strategies within televised broadcasts. The paper examines how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequently perceived. Through a consideration of the performative strategies of the sports commentator (Whannel, 1992) as an even...

Search Party is the collaboration between live artists Jodie Hawkes and Pete Phillips. In 2007 we... more Search Party is the collaboration between live artists Jodie Hawkes and Pete Phillips. In 2007 we started making Search Party vs… - an interactive, durational performance exploring our reoccurring interest in sport. We’re fascinated by sport; in narratives of the sports event, the relationship between task and failure, fandom and the sporting gaze, and how these ideas can be used as strategies for creating, framing and performing live art events. We make performances for theatres and public spaces and our sports related practice has existed in both contexts. Search Party vs… takes place in public and is predominantly concerned with a desire to engage with the inhabitants of public places, creating performative contexts which generate shared endeavor. Existing somewhere between mass public spectacle and intimate 1-on-1 performance, Search Party vs... borrows the notion of team from sport to examine connections between the personal and the geographic, exploring ideas of community, pla...

The thesis uses performance to elucidate the politics of sports commentary. In contrast to Willia... more The thesis uses performance to elucidate the politics of sports commentary. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of their independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the thesis argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority within sporting broadcasts. This written thesis and the Practice as Research articulates and critically contextualises the performance of sports commentary resulting in the production of a postdramatic theatre performance referred to as PhD Practice (2016), DVD documentation of the live event, a script and critical writing. Focusing on the commentary of the charity fun-runner in the Big City Marathon (BCM) the thesis uses Fischer-Lichte’s notion of performance as event (2008) as a framework to examine how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequ...

This paper uses the languages of contemporary performance to propose a new model for the analysis... more This paper uses the languages of contemporary performance to propose a new model for the analysis of sports commentary. Scholarship that has considered the performance of sports commentary, from Bryant, Brown, Comisky & Zillman (1977a, 1977b, 1982) Frederick et al. (2013), and Whannel (1992) all position the role within a dramatic tradition, examining the practice through traditional dramatic structures. Whilst these analyses highlight important features of the dramatic content of sports commentary, the use and frequency of ‘dramatic’ language, the focus on enmity or on particular narrative drives, the dramatic form doesn’t fully account for the performative mechanism of the sports commentator – what the commentator does. The paper proposes the consideration of the performance of sports commentary from a post-dramatic theatre (Lehmann, 2006) tradition inviting new ways of exploring the impact of sports commentary as part of the broadcast spectacle of professional sport. Reframing th...

The paper explores sports commentary as an alternative narrative form that provides insight to th... more The paper explores sports commentary as an alternative narrative form that provides insight to the contemporary world. The stories of sports commentary articulate how neoliberal ideology is embedded in popular culture. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the paper argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority through the use of specific narrative strategies within sporting broadcasts. Focusing on commentary of the fun-runner in the Big City Marathon (BCM) the paper uses Fischer-Lichte’s notion of performance as event (2008) to examine how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequently perceived. The paper considers the narrative strategies of the sports commentator (Whannel, 1992) as an event of text (Turner, 2009), t...

The paper considers sports commentary as a performance that reframes the meaning of sports events... more The paper considers sports commentary as a performance that reframes the meaning of sports events. Focussing on the BBC live commentary of fun-runners in the London Marathon, the paper explores how sports commentary articulates this spectacle of mass participation through the lens of capitalist charity, reframing fun running as complicit with neoliberal ideology. In contrast to Williams’ assertion that TV sports maintain a strong sense of independence despite control and commodification by government or commerce (1989) and Kennedy’s suggestion that the significance of sport is not tied to ideology (2001), the paper argues that sports commentary, however implicitly, asserts neoliberal authority through the use of specific performative strategies within televised broadcasts. The paper examines how sports commentary changes the way an event is received and subsequently perceived. Through a consideration of the performative strategies of the sports commentator (Whannel, 1992) as an even...