IT'S BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN FADE AWAY
Created exclusively for the festival “Hors Pistes” Centre Pompidou - Paris 2011, It’s Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away is a sound piece that brings together the greatest moments in sports in recent history together through their radio commentary.
Built from INA archives using the concept of the hip hop break, It’s Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away is a mix of sequences that find the radio host caught off-guard by the action of the moment, leaving his commentating role for a few seconds to reveal a pure emotion of joy or sadness, disappointment or victory.
It’s Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away demonstrates the challenges of conveying with sound the emotions aroused by such events as the victory of the Blues in 1998, death of Ayrton Senna, the taking of hostages in Munich in 1972, the victory of Marcel Cerdan against Tony Zale. It raises the question of the boundary between winners and losers, and those few seconds that permanently change the destiny of the game.
The installation will occupy the stairs and part of the exhibition space on level 1 of the Centre Pompidou.
Held in February since 2006, Hors Pistes has become the highlight of the annual Centre Pompidou event program, focuses on new ways of using contemporary images to show how they break away from traditional forms of film and narrative. The event is divided into two sections : screenings and exhibitions.
This year’s edition focuses on sports and its surrounding elements: fans, referees, commentators, and examining its imagined realm to explore questions about territory, performance, body and media. The festival will focus on ways in which the contemporary image has sometimes altered the nature of the game in an attempt to mitigate the randomness of sport within the constraints of a broadcasting schedule, how the sports of today is its image.
The festival will be held in 2011, January 21st to February 06th, at the Centre Pompidou, in the screening rooms as well as the forum -1.
