VFB versus BALL
(#1-62, 2001-2024)
VFB versus BALL refers to the parts or phases of a process-oriented long-term project that aims to trigger thought processes on the topics of consumption, fashion, sport, and globalization.
“The jumping-off point is the ball.” (Dettmar Cramer, former coach of FC Bayern Munich)
The “Verein für Ballstörungen (VFB)” offers humorously ironic as well as serious opportunities to examine the impact of Western lifestyles on the working conditions of people in football-producing countries. The top priorities were/are to create new publicity for the topic and to continuously improve one’s own level of play.
As BALL (“Bündnisse zur Aufrechterhaltung lausiger Lebensumstände” meaning as much as “Alliances for Maintaining Lousy Living Conditions”), this match summarizes all those phenomena that produce or perpetuate socially and/or environmentally questionable aspects of the sports goods industry. The VFB operates at the interfaces of football, visual arts, development policy, and product design, relying on the use of artistic power and creativity to transform aspects of society.
Series of objects made from branded footballs, 4 different shapes.
Installation view Galéria Jána Koniarka,
Trnava/SK (2003)
VFB versus BALL
#1: Global Player Matchballs (2001-2006)
One of the problem areas of globalized sports goods production – extremely poorly paid work, often performed by children under unacceptable conditions – is clearly evident in the example of football. An alternative to this is Fair Trade footballs, which, despite their good quality and low prices, are still largely unknown and underutilized in the football community. The object series Global Player Matchballs (4 geometrically correct bodies in several color variations) was hand-sewn using original tools. Disassembled branded footballs were used as material, whose components were rearranged and re-sewn using standard techniques. The deconstruction and reinterpretation of the central object in football is an attempt to question norms and break patterns. Visual irritation and unexpected rolling and bouncing behavior create increased attention and concentration: There’s something wrong with the branded ball.
Since there was wonder and interest in football circles at every appearance, trial trainings could be conducted in different leagues and age groups starting from 2002. On one hand, the players obviously had fun kicking, and on the other hand, I (Mario* Sinnhofer) posed the thesis: Whoever can handle these balls will have no problem with the round ball. In 2004, the first training session with professional footballers from the Austrian Bundesliga took place (SV Austria Salzburg), which also seemed interesting enough for the ORF sports department to send a camera team. Through the resulting segment in the prime-time show “Sport am Sonntag,” a broad public was reached for the first time. With the help of football objects, it was possible to engage with an audience distant from art – athletes as well as journalists – on a level familiar to them.
The Global Player Matchballs not only provide physical occasions for examining entrenched perceptual habits and patterns of action. By answering automatically arising questions, for example: “How do you make something like this?” or: “That’s ridiculously elaborate – who actually does that?” conversations often casually lead to a discussion about working conditions in production and the corresponding responsibility of consumers.
Finalist ISPO brandnew award 2010, Munich
(most important international sports fair)
The art objects Global Player Matchballs were launched on the sports goods market as serious football training equipment – with the intention of establishing Fair Trade in sports.
For this project, a trio of cooperation came together: The sports kinesiologist Franz Mayer was able to scientifically substantiate the thesis formulated above, and graphic designer Bernd Wagner developed the corporate identity (CI) and surface design. The company Rasenreich was born.
These sports equipment are bought neither as art objects nor because of the Fair Trade seal, but because of their actual training benefits – but in this way, the products smuggle the Fair Trade idea into the sports goods industry and onto the training grounds through the back door. Meanwhile, they are also used by teams from the highest leagues in various countries, including: Hertha BSC Berlin, FC Basel, Austria Wien, Zenit St. Petersburg, the U-21 teams of FC Bayern Munich and the Japanese national team, as well as numerous youth academies of renowned professional teams throughout Europe.
“The head is round so that thinking can change direction.”
(Francis Picabia, 1922)
“The ball is round so that the game can change direction.”
(Book title on football tactics, 1999)
The Effectiveness: How CORPUS Revolutionizes Football Training
Training with Rasenreich CORPUS improves coordination, technique, and reaction time. Field and goalkeepers are physically and mentally challenged, leading to an improvement in motor performance. Rasenreich CORPUS can be efficiently integrated into every game and exercise form in daily training. One training device – hundreds of application possibilities
Training devices CORPUS I and II provide a drastically increased level of difficulty. CORPUS is treated like a round football, but presents players with unfamiliar situations, mastering which significantly improves ball-handling skills, leading to decisive advantages in tournament play. Both versions have the same effect but exhibit different playing characteristics. Switching between the forms is important to prevent habituation effects.
FOOTBALL & ART
(written by Mario* Sinnhofer)
In a society where essential values such as acceleration and performance orientation can be discerned in sport, a humorous act can succeed in handling icons of sport in such a way that ruptures arise. I also understand such details as an entry aid into my work for groups of people who otherwise rarely or never come into contact with contemporary art. This helps create the feeling: “This guy, this artist, he’s somehow one of us too.”
The majority of my football works specifically aim to reach a football audience via untested paths, in order to then convey information, criticism, etc… at a next level that would otherwise not have penetrated the defensive lines of internal defense mechanisms. Ideally, this triggers processes of reflection. I proceed according to a tactic that is only too well known: A conspicuous, particularly beautiful or humorous event or appearance generates attention, which is then used for certain purposes.
In principle, most of my works would also function with another popular sport as a medium of transport because football is essentially only the example by which I, for example, attempted to shed light on globalized production processes. At the same time, the works function due to the widespread dissemination and intensity of present football cult. A circumstance that also relates to the immense increase in the media presence of football since the 1990s and a potent player called the sports goods industry.
Visible Nation and Contingency
Football is also significant “because the games of the national team are one of the few moments where one can observe a flesh-and-blood nation” (see footnote 1). Here is the rare opportunity to “see” the country. The team is livelier than a flag and more tangible than the gross domestic product. For example, when Brazilian fans talk about the tactics that they believe should be implemented by the national team, it’s not just a conversation about football. It also simultaneously addresses how the country as a whole should behave, how it presents itself and opposes the world. Do we want a creative, dancing home country, or one that is hardworking and functions like a well-oiled machine? The team is the nation.
One of the most cherished aspects of sporting events, contingency (2), is largely responsible for my own football enthusiasm. When the favored team wins the game, it may well be that the viewer has been offered an impressive “piece” by their superior performance and the way they dominated the opponent. As mentioned, this involves a fusion of authorship and performance. The standard expectation when watching a football match is that you get to see beautiful moves, high-level technical plays, and artistically scored goals. All of this, if you’re a fan, naturally from your own team. This claim is not easy to fulfill in any case because “in a football match, everything becomes complicated by the presence of the opposing team.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)
While a game like the one just described does meet high expectations, it is fundamentally predictable. However, a sports event is experienced much more intensely when something unexpected happens, and football continuously produces situations where this can happen. Contingency means that every event generates the further course of the game. Perhaps there would be a goal if the player crosses, but perhaps it’s better if he decides to dribble. Or much simpler: It may be crucial to the game whether the goalkeeper kicks the ball into the left or right half of the field when taking a goal kick, solely because different people are on the left and right sides of the field. Success and failure are closely related in football, both in terms of the entire game and individual actions. The moment of play selected to the split second, the exact angle of the foot when shooting, the intuitive reaction of the goalkeeper – each of these moments can suddenly completely change the course of the game, and players must constantly react to these changes. Contingency is always in play and is most keenly felt when everything hangs in the balance. Football is most fascinating in these moments.
Certain rules of the game deliberately create such situations in football, for example, when a decision about victory and defeat must be brought about from outside. For example, the away goal rule (3) in the UEFA Cup or the penalty shoot-out at a tournament like the World Championships. A penalty shoot-out pushes the drama to its peak. The last penalty, as a brief moment, decides victory or defeat after 120 minutes of play. Thus, in addition to the players, the elusive concept of contingency is also responsible for the fact that football can also be defined as art.
Footnotes
1 John Gill, Introduction to the exhibition catalog “Offside! Contemporary artists and football”, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1996 2 Wolfgang Welsch, Sport: Aesthetic Considered – and even as Art?, in: Kunst und Sport I, Kunstforum 169, 2004 3 Explanation of this rule: When two teams meet in the knockout phase of the UEFA Cup and determine the winner of the next round in one home and one away game, the so-called “away goal rule” is often applied. The winner is usually determined by adding both results. For example, with 1:0 in the first and 0:2 in the second game, the overall result is 1:2, and Club B advances. If the goals scored in both games are equal (e.g., 1:0 in the first and 1:2 in the second game – overall result 2:2), this rule stipulates that the team advances to the next round that has scored more away goals, i.e., in the opponent’s stadium. The away goal rule creates game situations in which, for example, a team that would be eliminated at the current scoreline can still win the game with just one additional goal. It is not necessary for an equalizing goal and then a winning goal to be scored, as in a single game.
More articles about Mario* Sinnhofer
http://spotsz.servus.at/artikel/jul-4-2013-2305/globalisierung-fussball-kunst
