The protracted last few weeks have been pinpointed by gradually diminishing sets of binaries wrought with tension, spectacle and amazing footwork. Of course, for the less than fanatic, it may be easy to toss it all off to them and let them deal with their own battles. It’s not on our turf, where the West’s enormous chatter of the postcolonial “have not planted roots in the deep soil of Chinese culture (没有在中国文化的深厚土壤中扎下根).” But Brother GAO still loves football, and he broadcasts every game he can, live from his home simultaneous to his daily stereo sounds of Teresa TENG at Xiaojingchang number 6. Chinese football may not show as much signs of promise as its art world, yet both are intertwined with “an unprecedentedly complex cultural atmosphere flooded with paradoxes (一个空前复杂、充斥着悖论的文化境遇)” and conflict. Binaries, perhaps? Is it the East vs. West question that critics such as 许江 XU Jiang and 高士明 GAO Shiming are tired of, or simply the West? Who wears the jersey of the “monotonous cultural other (一个单调的文化他者)”?

Tonight is an exception of the third option. Old man ZHANG says it’s too late to party, but our longitude outside of prime time means that the spectacle must find other subjectivities. The third place is runner up in the exceptional case, when winners are unable to fulfill their duties. To play this role is a flailing response to the call of face, unavoidable obligation whether anybody cares or not. Spectacle unseen, it can only be personal. QU says that desire is the necessary first step that he can admire due to his own lack, but inefficacy mated with desire is a flailing third place, one can do no other.

Documentation is a justification for the things that do not appear, or do not appear to be so. We may enter the space of the event, but what takes place? Is this personal or public (her questions explode artistic catharsis as a question of an indifferent socius)? I watched the third place game of the World Cup alone in the street in the middle of the night as a sort of subjective gesture of out-of-placeness. What Pelin TAN calls this “un-relation to space” is still a question of relation, however, albeit one with increasing suspicion of its rupture. “…what needs to be accomplished can fail. Micropolitics, affective politics, seeks the degrees of openness of any situation, in hopes of priming an alter-accomplishment.” (Brian Massumi)

Is the third place an alter-accomplishment? Is being out of context a monotonous cultural alterity? Are you really happy about that?

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(in mind, and thank you: 安静 Lee, 曲一箴 QU and sportsbabel)