By Michael Weisert
 In the second week of April in 2006 I held a competition billed as "The
Telepresent Tug of War". This event featured two large steel
cages each containing a two-ton winch. Linking the devices across
eight blocks of downtown San Jose was a bit of Python code comparing
strength data about the participants. The game worked in a
similar fashion to a traditional tug-of-war. You pull the rope, I
move forward. From this competition I found emergent pockets of
team pride, a bit of show-boating and alot of enthusiasm to be a part
of the game.
Below is an excerpt from my research documentation of the
project. I discuss the cultural history of the tug of war,
from its origins in China and Japan, to the more recent competitions
held in Okinawa and San Francisco. It also examines competitions
of pride, especially the duel. The final segment discusses the cultural
significance of sport, especially within American society, to answer
questions about its influence on art.
"The Telepresent Tug of War" will be shown again at ISEA2006/Zero-One San Jose this summer at Works Gallery in San Jose.
Competition of Pride: The duel, the tug of war and John Henry
As a means of conflict resolution, the duel carries
a long history throughout Europe, America, and California in
particular. The duel is separate from simple violent means of
conflict resolution in that it contains a specific set of rules that
participants must adhere to. . In 1777 the Irish created an
excellent example of published rules of engagement, known as the Code
Duello. This document covers the legal and honorable ways in
which two men may settle their dispute. The origin of the duel
began in A.D. 501 when Gundebald, King of the Burgundians, legally
established the duel as a means of legal trial. (Baldick, 12).
The belief was that to solve legal conflict, the two parties involved
would engage in a strict form of combat. The victor was
granted victory by God, which proved the validity of their
argument. The tools for this combat have been varied, but usually
involved swords. For those deemed unable to defend their honor
(women, priests and men older than 60), they could hire a “champion” to
represent them. This practice or hiring a proxy became common for
those of greater means, especially those of royalty. It is
arguable that the “champion” model set in place 1500 years ago is still
existent in the form of hired attorneys.
The most interesting aspect of the duel model of
ancient times is that the actual defendant and/or plantiff would wait
for the outcome of the battle with a rope tied to his or her
neck. If their champion was defeated, they were immediately
hanged as punishment. (Baldick) It is this idea of energy
and consequence being transferred that is central to my work, the
Telepresent Tug of War (TToW). In both methods, energy is being
enacted. In the duel model, one champion defeats another with
force. This information is passed through an intermediary and
enacted on a separate entity. In the TToW, an individuel
overcomes the perceived force of their opponent. This information
is sent through an electronic intermediary (TCP/IP) and enacted out in
the separate location.
“In America one only fights to kill; one fights
because one sees no hope of getting one’s adversary condemned to
death. There are very few duels, but they almost always end
fatally.” Alexis de Tocqueville, 1831 (Baldick pg.115)
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Judicial Combat
Illustration from the late 15th century ‘Chronique d’ Angleterre’ by Jean de Wavrin
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In the (American) West, especially California, the
duel was a primary means of conflict resolution and
entertainment. In the 1850’s, San Francisco became known as the
dueling capital of the U.S. Local papers would advertise duels as
street and stage performances for local residents to attend. It
is arguable that these duels of honor were the first performance
artists in California (apart from the original, displaced
natives). One duel in particular utilized a primitive form of
news updates to create a comparison between the two participants.
In San Francisco, Southerner Colonel William Gwin
and J.W. McCorkle decided to settle their dispute via a duel with
pistols. Colonel Gwin’s wife refused to attend the match in fear
of watching her husband die. To give her up to date progress of
the duel, a messenger ran back and forth between the duel and her home
located a few blocks away. After each shot, she received
notification that the attacker had missed his target. Oddly
enough, both men failed to hit each other after many volleys of
bullets and the duel was considered a draw. Mrs. Gwin was
saddened by the poor display of accuracy by both men. (Baldick)
This story relates to the Telepresent Tug of War in that the messenger
in this story is acting in the same manner as the TCP/IP line in the
artwork. He is delivering packets of information to Mrs. Gwin,
who is able to assess the situation from a distance. In the TToW,
two monitors located next to each unit stream the comparative data to
observers on the contest.
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San Francisco Tug-of-War, 1894
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San Francisco was the scene of an altogether different display of
dueling in 1894. Billed as “the greatest international tug-of-war
tournament ever held in this or any other country”, the tournament
hosted teams from eight different countries (U.S., Canada, Scotland,
Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia.) To measure the
distance pulled by a particular side, the judge was raised above the
ring and slid a ball down a rail to measure the distance the rope had
traveled. This method was an excellent analog solution to the
problem of force measurement (The TToW utilizes devices known as “load
cells” to solve the same issue, which will be covered in the final
section of this document.) More than 10,000 people filled the
pavilion to watch Canada leave with victory. The popularity of
the event led to the adoption of the tug-of-war into the Olympics in
1900. It was finally dropped from competition in 1920.
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Naha Tsunahiki, JapanUpdate.com
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Although the San Francisco tug-of-war was successful in drawing alarge
crowd, it pales in comparison to the number of people who
participate in the Naha tug-of-war held annually in Okinawa. An
estimated 25,000 people participate in a tug-of-war using a rope
weighing 40 tons and is 100 meters long. The contest lasts for
thirty minutes and begins when team leaders stand on top of the rope
and command their teams into place. Teams are separated between
East and West, which is symbolic of the two ruling dynasties of Naha
from centuries ago.
“The tug-of-war dates back to 1600, when it served a duel purpose.
Villagers from east and west did honorific battle for victory as a sign
to shamans who predicted the future. The prayers were for a good rice
harvest. The second motive was to instill peace and stability into the
lives of seafarers of this island nation, and to insure their safety.”
(Japan Update.com)
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Center of the Rope, Naha Tsunahiki
JapanUpdate.com
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In other areas of Japan and China, large-scale matches are held for
different reasons. The Itoman Tsunahiki (tug-or-war) is held as a
ritual to ensure proper crop growth. Legend holds that the first
Tsunahiki held in the rice paddies was successful in clearing out
insects, and has therefore been performed every year since in the month
of June. In China, the sport dates back to the year 71 c.e. in
which the tug-or-war was used as a means of settling a dispute over the
superiority of Taoism vs. Buddhism. Many other areas of these two
countries hold Tsunahiki as ritual relating to each area’s personal
history. This use of sport as ritual and cultural event will be
explored in the next section. I would first like to briefly touch
upon the legend of John Henry and its reflection of cultural importance
within American Society.
“With his hammer and his determination to prove his superiority over a
machine, he made a name for himself in folk history. His super
strength, his grit, us endurance, and his martyrdom appeal to something
fundamental in the heart of the common man. John Henry stands for
something which the pick-and-shovel Negro idolizes-brute
strength. He epitomizes the tragedy of man versus machine.”
(Johnson pg.142)
The story of John Henry is a tale about a man who overcomes a machine
in an industrial race. In the process, he dies from exhaustion
immediately after defeating his mechanical foe. I want to briefly
touch upon John Henry to bring to discuss the American tale of man vs.
machine. In American culture we see an abundance of reoccurring
stories in which the machine is an enemy to be feared. These
stretch from the tale of John Henry, to movies such as Metropolis and
The Matrix. The story of John Henry offers a possible explanation
for this fear. During the industrialization of America, many
people were displaced from their traditional job roles. The
machine had effectively destroyed the jobs of much of rural
America. This destruction was illustrated in the novels The
Grapes of Wrath as well as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. By
overcoming a machine, a cause of the Great Depression turmoil, makes
John Henry the hero.
When using the Telepresent Tug of War, users are
physically struggling with a machine that is loud and powerful.
With the users in different locations, all a participant can experience
is this battle with a winch. At what point does the user separate
the physical experience with the mechanical and the data driven from
another human participant? The acceptance of the
device as a bridge between two players relates directly to the nature
of sports in general.
Sport as Cultural Icon: Baseball, Boxing and Soccer
“Sport, as a popular art form, is not just self-expression but is
deeply and necessarily a means of interplay within an entire
culture.” (McLuhan pg. 241)
Sport and art are both a reflection of society that
allows the participant(s) to act out societal beliefs without
endangering the social fabric. The tragic hero, like John Henry,
is found within both art and sport. George Bellows created
paintings depicting the acts of boxers in an ideological light.
Examples of tragic figures in art include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko
and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Each of these painters rises from
poverty and obscurity to become famous, only to destroyed by a tragic
flaw. Sports figures are no different. American culture
idolizes tragic athletes such as Shoeless Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Mike
Tyson, and more recently, Barry Bonds.
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George Bellows – “Stag at Sharky’s” 1909. The Cleveland Museum of Art
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Beyond the tragic character, art and sport also
share a rich history within religion in western culture. Art,
especially through the Renaissance, was closely tied to Catholic
theology in its subject matter. Ancient Greece and Rome used
sport as public performance as well as a cultural system to build class
hierarchy. It is this tie to ancient Rome, namely paganism that
led early Catholics to demonize sport. This belief still carries
on today in American society in which it is a societal belief that
athletes sacrifice intellect for physical prowess. (sport pg. 91)
Eastern culture holds an exact opposite view of sports. The focus on
harnessing life force through body to promote spiritual growth is
central to most eastern religions.
I am most interested by the embodiment of a theology
into athletics and art. When countries meet in the Olympics it
becomes small battles of theology enacted through game. Great
examples include: the 1933 games in Berlin, in which the United States
faced off with Hitler’s “supermen”, the 1973 games in which the
Russians defeated the United States in Basketball, and the 1980 games
in which the U.S. Hockey team defeated Russia. In art,
cultural battles have taken place in the early 1900’s when the United
States worked desperately to shift the cultural focus from Paris to New
York, or the more recent push of Asian / Pacific Rim culture to
overcome an Atlantic-based art world. By focusing attention
on a particular location, participants justify their beliefs and build
a sense of national pride. This rule applies both sport and art.
I began this section by singling out three sports:
baseball, boxing and soccer. I selected these each one represents
society at a national, regional and individuel level. Baseball is
mostly considered an American sport, although which America (North or
Central) I am referring to is debatable. The recent World Baseball
Classic has brought this title into question. Baseball
dissects America into regional rivalries in which similar regional
locations battle for ideological superiority. The most obvious of
these are: San Francisco vs. Los Angeles, Oakland vs. Anaheim,
Cleveland vs. Chicago, and New York vs. Boston.
Soccer, as opposed to baseball, is played widely on
a national stage. During the first exhibition of the TToW, it was
widely suggested that a Telepresent game was an excellent alternative
to warfare. This argument is debatable when we consider the World
Cup “Soccer War”. In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after
three hotly contested matches. Soccer has also been responsible
for diplomatic strains between several African countries. In the
beginning of the Iraq war, we learned the plight of the Iraqi soccer
team. After their previous defeats, they were subject to torture
by the Hussein family.
On an individuel level, boxing has played the
metaphor for the common man in both English and American society.
America has rallied behind boxers such as Mohammed Ali, Sonny Liston,
and James Braddock (as depicted in the recent film, Cinderella
Man.) The boxer is easily compared to the “champion” of the duel
as I previously discussed. The modern day boxer is an ideological
champion for the common man. One lesser-known boxer, Tom
Molineaux (a slave in 1810), was granted his freedom when his owner was
in awe of his abilities. Tom went on to represent the United
States in a fight versus Great Britain’s Tom Cribb. Molineaux was
able to overcome racism due to his physical abilities in a sport
central to American ideology.
Throughout the history of art, different movements
in art have made it central to their ideals to embody the values of
their specific region. In American art, these movements included
the Ash Can School, the American Landscape Painters and Regionalism,
while all modernist art movements have specifically been created to
promote a set a set of values.
Baldick, Robert, “The Duel: A History of Dueling” Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. New York, New York. 1965 212 pgs.
Cochran, Hamilton, “Noted American Duels and Hostile Encounters” Chilton Books, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1963
Goldberg, Ken (Ed.) “The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and
Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet”. The MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA. 2000 365pgs.
JapanUpdate.com. The Story of a Rope – The Naha Tsunahiki. http://japanupdate.com/en/?id=6562# (accessed March 1, 2006).
Johnson, Guy B., “John Henry: Tracking Down A Negro Legend”, AMS Press, New York, New York. 1969
Lozano-Hemmer, Rafael. Selected Projects and Videos.
http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/eproyecto.html (accessed March 10, 2006).
Mazlish, Bruce, “The Fourth Discontinuity” Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. 1993
McLuhan, Marshall, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. 1964 365pgs.
Okinawa.com. Yoisho! – Naha Tsunahiki. http://www.okinawa.com/tsunahiki.html (accessed February 15, 2006).
Packer, Randall and Jordan, Ken (ed.), “Multi-Media: from Wagner to
virtual reality” W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York.
2001 394pgs.
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Shaw, Jeffrey. /Works/Writings/Biograp.
http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/html_main/frameset-works.php3 (accessed
March 10, 2006).
STELARC. 2005. The Body. http://switch.sjsu.edu/v19/00001u (accessed April 1, 2006).
Womack, Mari, “Sport as Symbol: images of the athlete in art,
literature and song” McFarland & Company, Inc. Jefferson, NC. 2003
241 pgs.
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