Spectator as Spectacle

The subject of this research is sport. The role of the spectator is central to this research. Spectator as Spectacle is an investigation and response into a particular area of contemporary culture, the sporting crowd. The enormous numbers of individuals who participate in this leisure activity justify sport as being a dominant part of Australian life and validate its analyRelevant theories from disciplines including phenomenology and social and cultural anthropology provide a relevant framework for discussion. Diverse influences are examined including artists and photographers who have concerns, concepts and techniques with correlations to the evolution of the research paintings. The body of work produced articulates and reveals the sharing of space, immersive aspects, anonymity and personal assertion. Whether magnified to a cropped close up of an individual or viewed from a distance as a crowd, each painting reveals aspects of the spectator experience. The resulting paintings are primarily realistic, based on personal digital photographs taken at a multitude of sporting events at a variety of stadium locations. However, actual events and sites are unimportant to this investigation and are unidentifiable in the work, since it is the commonality of experience, rather than the differences that is the crux of the study.The scale is deliberately small, the antithesis of the vast environments where the action takes place. The viewer is encouraged toward the picture, yet distanced by the images being softly blurred. The manipulation of focus controls the amount of information revealed in the image and unites elements of the picture. Image selection, cropping, enlarging and computer manipulation each plays a part in the paintings. By shifting attention from the on-field play to the stands, spectators are exposed and revealed as deserving the consideration usually reserved for competitors. The result elevates spectators from the support act to the spectacle