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Olympic Games

Back from Torino

I returned from the Torino 2006 Games yesterday with the finger wagging advice of the Bryght guys. So here I am. I want to use this place to gradually replace the static look of my website. It would be nice to post all the material I usually include within my website here. Frequently, new elements of my website don't fit into any other research blogs I write, so this should be where all that goes. In essence then, this should give an impression of my week to week activities rather than function as a snapshot of my life.

Empty Stadia but Lots of Passion

In case you missed it, Torino's slogan is 'Passion Lives Here' and it certainly does seem true. Yesterday, we spent 3 hours queuing for the 400 tickets to the medal plaza that were made available for free to anyone. In the end, we missed out by about 20 places, but the experience was enlightening. Many of the people in the queue seemed more aware of and interested in the artist who would be performing, than the athletes who would be receiving medals. That night, the first, it was Andrea Boccelli, so the italians were particularly passionate about obtaining tickets. A few arguments broke out and people soon became strategic in their attempt to obtain a ticket. We overheard some people talking about buying them from others and a couple of times, we saw people offer their tickets to others.

The frustration came in the evening when seeing many of the seats empty. It is clear that the sale of tickets does not rate particularly highly for an organising committee, but it seems that it would be wonderful to avoid these situations, which seem to happen over and over again.

I think today, we will go direct to the Plaza in the evening and see if we can benefit from someone's generosity. Who can spend 3hrs queuing in Olympic Fortnight? I'm just glad i had my LifeDrive and a stack of reading.

Doping in Torino

I am writing from the Torino Media Centre within the City after having read and heard a lot more about Repoxygen. Over the last few days, there have been a number of journalists getting in touch wanting to find out about this. On Thursday, I interviewed for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's evening news. I spoke with Tom Harrington, whom I first met in Toronto when Genetically Modified Athletes came out. It's so good to speak to Tom, as he is genuinely interested in the broader philosophical questions that the development in technology provokes. I am also interviewing for CBC's The Hour on Monday, which will take place at the Main Media Centre in Torino. From what I have seen, doping has been high on the news agenda for Torino. There still seems a lot of confusion about whether genetic doping is taking place and there are no confirmed cases. However, there does seem to be a lot of uncertainty about the circumstances here, which is quite different from Athens where nearly no discussions emerged during Games time about whether gene doping might be happening.

From what I have read, there is also less clarity about how best to deal with genetic doping. While WADA and others wish to treat it as just another form of doping, i believe that there is also a philosophical uncertainty about the future of doping and its bearing on humanity. This ambiguity relates to the broader changes within society through technology. In the end, we appear to live within a culture of enhancement and, in this environment, the relevance of prohibiting genetically modified athletes is weakened. All that remains is the medical interest to protect its integrity and the safety of athletes.

If any journalist would like to call me for interview while in Torino, I can be contacted on:

0034 6365 0302

Torino 2006

The cauldren is about to be lit here in Torino. The city squares are full of people watching big tv screens and the final arrangements to the city are over. The Olympic Truce moment in the Opening Ceremony was spectacular, creative and poignant. Beatriz and I are now in the Media Centre among around 30 other journalists. The city has become progressively busy today, though still no major queues around ticket offices.

We learned that the medals plaza will be open to non-residents and that 400 tickets will be available each night for those who try to obtain them.

A couple of nights ago, we saw the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony, but they didnt include the amazing ferrari moment. The red lookof the city is in clear coordination with the TOROC look of the Games. There seems to be a good collaborative branding to both elements and the Cultural Olympiad has a strong, subtle and stylish presence around the city.

Tickets were hard to obtain today. The website was unavailble for some time and although cheapest options were shown available, it was not possible to select them. WE eventually accessed some from the ticket office near Medal Plaza where a very small queue had formed. Typically, each customer took around 20mins to serve as they had to pick which days they wanted to visit venues.Not simple.

Repoxygen

Last week, a new gene doping story broke just as I was preparing my final grades for the end of semester and desperately trying to finalise details for the the research trip to the Torino Olympics. Repoxygen has been billled as the first case of genetic doping. Naturally, the media has gone crazy trying to understand what this means and sports officials already claim that a test is already under development. Interestingly, the claim about this new method of doping using 'repoxygen' was discovered through heresay:

"The springboard for these dire pronouncements was an email German police found on the computer belonging to former east German coach to Katrin Krabbe, Thomas Springstein, who is on trial at the moment for doping under-age female athletes. The message complained how "difficult it is to get hold of Repoxygen. Please give me new instructions so that I can get hold of the product for Christmas". Michael Butcher, Scotland on Sunday [who, by the way, didnt bother to call me for an opinion!]

I'm off to Turin tomorrow and already have interviews lined up on this subject. On the approach to Athens, scientists were claiming that Beijing might be our first Gene Games, but it seems Turin might have that famous title.

Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games

The next research trip will take place at the Torino Games where Beatriz Garcia and I will continue our work looking at media and culture. This visit is funded by the British Academy and links with some research planned for Beijing 2008. View the flickr photos.

Vol 7 of C@tO

Volume 7 of Culture at the Olympics has just been published. The contents are proceedings from a symposium that took place at University of Glasgow in June 2005, in association with London 2012. Contents as follows:

7.1 Exploring Internationalism: Scotland responds to London's Olympic Vision for Culture in 2012 pp1-8
7.2 Welcome Presentation, pp.9-11 by Professor Adrienne Scullion
7.3 Special Address, pp.12-16 by Patricia Ferguson, Member of Scottish Parliament
7.4 Olympism and Internationalism, pp.17-23 by Jude Kelly, Chair Culture & Education, London 2012
7.5 Culture at the Olympics: Intangible, invisible, but impacting, pp.24-34 by Beatriz Garcia & Andy Miah
[Also access the powerpoint presentation in pdf (8mb)]
7.6 Discussion Session [transcript], pp.35-55 edited by Beatriz Garcia

Olympic 2012 Celebrity line-up

I was just reading an article in The Telegraph, which mentions that Aboriginal-Australian athlete Cathy Freeman is going to be a major ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic team. The Telegraph reports that she was a big hit in Singapore during the final bid presentation where "It was noticeable during the build-up to the vote how many IOC members approached Freeman to be photographed with her." (Hazel, 2005, Jul 18, Daily Telegraph, London) I didn't really see much of the final day presentation broadcasts leading up to the International Olympic Committeee decision on 6 July, but I do recall seeing a press conference where journalists were surprised by the lack of celebrities in the Paris bid team. Something along the lines of 'but,where are your celebrities?'. I was told by some colleagues that there were, in fact, some celebs there for Paris, but, nevertheless, one might wonder how much the celebs really nailed it for London. To London's advantage, there seemed particular merit in having David Beckham alongside, specifically because he self-identified as a native of the east London region that would benefit from the regeneration the Olympics would bring.

(image, Cathy Freeman in Athens media centre during the Olympics)

The Liminal Body

An exhibition that brings together a range of my interests - posthuman, Olympic, body modification. Seems it was from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

The Liminal Body 8 September - 15 October, 2000

Tue - Sun: 11.00am - 6.00pm Galleries One and Two

Jon Baturin Farrell & Parkin Sue Fox Dieter Huber Bill Jacobson Diana Thorneycroft

Curated by Alasdair Foster

At a time when the eyes of the world is glued to images of the body pressed to its athletic extreme, the Australian Centre for Photography presents an exhibition that explores other corporeal limits through the provocative and uncompromising work of seven photo-artists from Australia, Austria, Canada, UK and USA.

The Olympic Games play out the apollonian tradition of a healthy mind/spirit housed within, and finding physical representation through the fit healthy functioning body. As a political event the Olympics take this tradition and applies it to the state - the healthy body, striving for supremacy in the sporting arena becomes an emblem of state identity and a metaphor for spiritual (and political) wellbeing (if not ascendancy).

The Liminal Body explores the bacchic obverse of the apollonian Olympic paradigm - looking to other equally (perhaps more) human limits. The body on the brink of life/death; the dysfunctional body; the visceral reality of flesh and blood; the corporal as it shades into the spiritual; the sensate as it merges into the virtua

From medieval medical machinery to virtual 'genital modification'; from the cadaver to the spiritual; from the catharsis of nightmare to the control of meaning: The Liminal Body presents challenging work that imaginatively explores the limits of human bodily experience.

The Symposium Death Dysfunction and the Olympic Ideal further explored these issues.

One-Day Symposium Death Dysfunction and The Olympic Ideal

A Symposium complementing the exhibition The Liminal Body presented by the Australian Centre for Photography and the University of New South Wales at the College of Fine Arts 9th September 2000 Venue

Lecture Theatre E block University of New South Wales at the College of Fine Arts, Paddington Enter off Selwyn Street

Program

Set against the background of the Sydney Olympics and taking a radical and provocative alternative approach to physical extremity, this one-day symposium will explore the challenging issues raised by the work of the seven artists showing in the ACP exhibition The Liminal Body. With an international, cross-disciplinary panel of speakers, subjects addressed will range from Rabelais's Gargantua to postmodern health neuroses; from the mortician's slab to the priest's alter; from the visceral to the virtual.

Following the keynote presentation the day will be divided into three sessions:

* Malady and Viscerality * Dissolution and Spirituality * Phantasm and Virtuality

Abstracts

Keynote

Dr. Kit Messham-Muir (Australia) No Gold for Gargantua

My presentation will begin with a brief excerpt from the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald about a race involving Ian Thorpe and Michael Klim. The story reads like a piece of erotic fiction - it's very funny. Then I'll briefly talk about the way in which the City of Sydney itself is being promoted to the world as a classically ideal 'body' - which is efficient, pushed to its capacity, times and homogeneous - physically and psychologically. From that I'll lead into the classical tradition of this body and compare it with the more heterogeneous notions of the body in medieval culture as seen through the novels of François Rabelais. While the Western Enlightenment philosophy that followed reimposed a notion of the body more aligned with that of Classicism, this model of a problematised 'Rabelaisian' body has made something of resurgence with this faltering of grand narratives of modernity. I'll finish by looking briefly at the ways in which this notion of the body has been dealt with in recent art such as that of Andres Serrano, Patricia Piccinini, Adam Cullen (in his pre-Archibald career) and the artists showing in The Liminal Body.

Kit Messham-Muir is a lecturer in Art History and Theory at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW. He has a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of NSW and a Bachelor of Visual Arts first class from Sydney College of the Arts. He lectures on a wide range of cultural subjects including pornography, grunge and the loser aesthetic.

Session One: Malady and Viscerality

Jon Baturin (Canada) Myths about Ends

Hope and the 'ideology of care' define my philosophic position. The ideas behind the works I produce arise from observations of a world in turmoil. We see the breakdown of systems or ideas (the body / philosophical ideologies / societal justice) through processes of corruption, negligence, or decay. There is also a dominant reference to bodily dysfunction throughout the work. Life sometimes deals us some cruel blows. In some cases we cease to be healthy. In others we cease to be idealistic. Most difficult of all - we (or those whom we love) live and die tragically. "Enemies Within" uses chaos and flesh. "The Myths cycle" acknowledges chaos, fear & flesh. The resulting combination of portraits, figures and medical imagery produces discomforting juxtapositions. However neither the subjects nor the anatomical representations are themselves unaesthetic. There is an unsettling kind of beauty. There is dignity. And there is hope.

Jon Baturin is an artist and Associate Professor and Program Director Photography & Explorations at York University, Canada. He has a Master of Fines Arts from Glasgow School of Art (Scotland), an advance diploma in photography and print media from the Emily Carr College of Art, Vancouver and a BA in psychology and sociology from the University of Victoria, Canada. He has exhibited widely overseas and curated a number of exhibitions in Canada and Europe. His critical writings have been published in North America and Europe.

Victoria Ryan (Australia) The Art of Living Well: A Hypochondriac's Guide

In recent years the Olympic ideal of eternal youth has been given scientific credibility by futurists who argue that we will soon see the last mortal generation. In keeping with such predictions, utopian medical narratives no longer represent aging and death as inevitable, but as diseases to be cured, through technological intervention and the erasure of visible signs of degeneration. Thus, the 'art of living well' emerges in popular health advice as a series of (im)possible, strategies for cheating death and staying young.

Victoria Ryan is currently completing a PhD at the School of Art History and Theory, University of NSW at the College of Fines Arts (COFA) entitled The Anatomy Lesson: Photography, Eugenics and Physical Culture in Australia 1900-1950. She has worked as a lecturer and tutor at COFA since 1996. Her research interests include public health photography, medical illustration, popular health advice, organ transplants and aesthetic surgery.

Michael Wardell (Australia) Ailment, argot, and artifice in the work of Farrell & Parkin

This talk will give a very brief outline of the development of Farrell & Parkin's work from Film Noir 1985 to Traces of the Flood 1999/2000. It will concentrate on the two themes that have dominated the work of the 1990's; that of secret language and that of sickness. It will discuss their extensive use of fiction and artifice to explore notions of strength/weakness, beauty/horror, sickness/health, benefaction/torture etc.

Curatorial Services Coordinator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales since 1998. Previously Director of Michael Wardell Gallery (13 Verity Street), 1986-97, a curator at The Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1978-1986 and at Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, 1976-1978. Farrell & Parkin were represented in Victoria by Michael Wardell Gallery 1994-97.

He has curated numerous exhibitions including Photography: The Last Ten Years. Australian National Gallery at Australian National University, 1980, Iskustvo: Recent Soviet Paintings, Linden Gallery & 13 Verity Street (followed by Regional tour) 1990 and (with Tony Bond) Ken Unsworth, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998. He also curated the photography exhibition My City of Sydney, which is currently showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He has written numerous articles and catalogue essays including Farrell & Parkin: Black Room. Encontros Da Imagem. 10 Anos. Associação Cultural de Fotografia e Cinema de Braga. Portugal, 1996, and has lectured extensively throughout Australia.

Session Two: Dissolution and Spirituality

Rebecca Scott Bray (Australia) Sensing Death: The chiaroscuro of touch in the mortuary photography of Sue Fox

This talk engages with the mortuary photography of British artist Sue Fox. Fox's images melt flashes of death and fragments of texture into a language for viewing death that is resonant with the artist's meditation and Buddhist faith. How long is our dying, how deep is our life? What questions are posed by the flesh: of the viewer, of the dead body? Moving these bodies into gallery spaces, and therefore public consideration, Sue Fox presents the viewer with an accumulation of decompositions. Here, photography releases the image as a chant, as the artist states "of what is, what was ... a song".

Rebecca Scott Bray is completing a PhD in the Department of Criminology at the University of Melbourne. She has a Master of Criminology from the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and a BA with honours from the Australian National University. She has presented a number of papers on law, culture and the imagination at conferences in Australia, USA and UK.

Kirk Huffman (UK/USA) Malakula and Kaggaba: The 'Living Dead' and the 'Dead Living'

This illustrated presentation will contrast the attitudes to death in two specific and far spread cultures: the people of southern Malakula Island in Vanuatu and the "last surviving pre-Colombian civilisation", the Kaggaba (also known as the Kogi) of Colombia. Based upon his research in Vanuatu from 1973 - 2000 and his trip to Colombia in 1992, Kirk Huffman will outline the attitudes to the body and to death in these two cultures, setting them against their individual cosmologies. The southern Malakulans believe that the dead live among them as 'travelling spirits'. They smoke the bodies of deceased males shortly after death and eventually over-model the skulls to honour the likenesses of the departed as a way of representing that closeness. The Kaggaba live high on a vast mountain in northern Colombia which they believe to be the heart of the world. Their whole social order is focused upon supporting their Sun Priests in their spiritual rites, which they believe sustain all life throughout the world. The Kaggaba believe that what we call 'life' is a form of death and that it is only when one passes from this world that one truly lives. Consequently when their priests reach the age of 90 years and their work is considered to be over, they can ask to be buried alive and so move into the new and more real life to which they aspire.

Kirk Huffman is an anthropologist/ethnologist and currently Visiting Fellow in the Anthropology Division of the Australian Museum. He was Curator at the National Museum of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Vanuatu from 1977-89 and continues to hold that position in an honorary capacity. He studied Social Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistoric Archaeology at the Universities of Newcastle, Oxford and Cambridge in England from 1966-77 receiving a BA Hons in Anthropology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Ethnology. He has advised on the making of 36 anthropological television documentaries including David Attenborough's 'Man blong kastom' [BBC2/PBS 1975]. He was one of the authors and editors of Arts of Vanuatu [Crawford House Press 1996]. Mr Huffman will be leaving again for Vanuatu and Southern Malakula shortly after this lecture.

Alasdair Foster (Australia) Songs of Sentient Beings

This presentation will trace the development of Bill Jacobson's work during the 90s, from the earlier works addressing his intense sense of loss as AIDS and HIV began to take friends and community from him [Interim Portraits] to the more resigned images of his later work [Thought Series]. I will go on to explore his attempt to create a visual equivalent for the fading of substance and the more hopeful evoking of a notion of the 'trace'.

Alasdair Foster is the director of the Australian Centre for Photography and the curator of The Liminal Body. He has a BSc in physics, history of science and modern theatre from the University of Edinburgh. He was the founding director of Fotofeis, the international biennale of photo-based arts in Scotland and curator of the seminal exhibition, Behold the Man that toured Europe and North America. He has a background in film, commercial and art photography, art criticism and publishing.

Session Three: Phantasm and Virtuality

Diana Thorneycroft (Canada) The Body: Its Lesson and Camouflage

I work in total darkness. I lock the aperture of my camera open and using only a torch I illuminate my body, the props and environment I have prepared for each private performance. What is recorded on film is always a surprise as my body has a language of its own, a language that my conscious mind does not always speak let alone fully comprehend. My discussion will focus on the body, its expression of suffering and the darker aspects of the unconscious mind that have been fundamental to my work for many years.

Diana Thorneycroft is an artist and Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada. She has an MA in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA Hons in Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba. She has exhibited widely internationally and her work has featured in a number of documentaries on CBC TV.

Maurice Whelan (Australia) Psychoanalysis and The Creative Imagination

This paper explores the need for self-representation through play, dreams, art and through emotional contact with fellow human beings. It will address the place of the creative imagination as a transformative agent within the practice of psychoanalysis. In exploring these ideas I will demonstrate how my thinking draws inspiration both from the psychoanalytic body of knowledge and from literature.

Maurice Whelan studied philosophy, theology and sociology in Ireland. He trained as a social worker in England and worked as a field social worker and as a psychiatric social worker in Child Guidance. He has an MA in Criminology and Social Policy. He trained as a psychoanalyst in London and is member of the British and Australian Psychoanalytic Societies. Since 1992 he has lived and worked in Sydney. His book Mistress of Her Own Thoughts was published in July by Rebus press.

Dieter Huber (Austria) Body Unlimited

In his cycle KLONES (1994-1999) Dieter Huber worked on options for genetic engineering and questions of manipulation in general. In connection with social context, gender, political statement, technology and art history he developed metaphorical computer-aided images. In selected works the artist will illustrate his operating method and question the future of the human being in time of 'life sciences'.

Dieter Huber is an artist living and working in Salzburg, Austria. He studied stage and costume design at the Mozarteum University, Salzburg. He has exhibited regularly in Europe in over 25 solo and 40 group exhibitions and his work is the subject of several monographs.

Live Internet links to artist Sue Fox in the UK and Farrell & Parkin in China will further extend the discussion.

The Symposium will be formally launched by Little Johnny (formerly Pauline Pantsdown, aka Simon Hunt) taking time from his gruelling millennial Olympic program to bestow a prime ministerial blessing on the event "and perhaps a small apology".

Symposium coordinated by Alasdair Foster (ACP) and Lynne Roberts Goodwin and Peter McNeil (UNSW at COFA) Internet coordinator Ricky Cox

Image Credits:

• Dieter Huber, Klone #31, 1994-95 • Sue Fox, Untitled, 1997 • Diana Thorneycroft, Untitled (bridle), 1998 • Farrell & Parkin, After the Flood, 2000 • Jon Baturin, Enemies Within #2, 1992 • Bill Jacobson, Song of Sentient Beings #1612, 1995 Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York

link to site

The finishing line

This is our last day in Athens. How quickly it has all happened! The morning is spent trying to arrange bags, then rushing to meet Lucy from the Olympic Truce but she cancels so we get back to the house. We do not leave for the ZPC until 12.30 and decide to have lunch at the nice ‘Event’ restaurant to learn, upon arrival around 2pm, that at 12 there had been a press presentation by the Torino 2006 Winter Games Team. We are disappointed to have missed it, but we get some information, including an extensive press pack. On the way, before lunch, we go through Swatch street in Plaka to see ‘Kaleidoscope’, one of many sponsor-related art initiatives. It is a clever idea, consisting of objects made by athletes in the form of art displays. The street is painted as a track lane.

At our return at the ZPC, the Zappeion peristyle has been transformed into a food and drinks display from all over Greece. As always, it has been very well arranged. It is amazing how many shows they are putting on, most of them in excellent taste though poorly attended by the journalists. We get some free ice cream, which is always welcome.

We take the bus to the airport and are very happy to learn that British Airways will allow us to take all the material we have compiled without charge.

We see many athletes at the airport. They are leaving after their events, which is a shame as one would wish that the Olympic village were full and busy to the end – and that the athletes were able to enjoy the atmosphere. But reality is not always as one would like it. In the end, it is the athletes with less chances of winning who are probably making the most of the Olympic experience. At least, they can relax enough to enjoy and socialise, party and meet different cultures – and stay until to the Closing ceremony!

We, unfortunately, will have to give it a miss this year. Next stop is Montreal!

Radcliffe's Greek tragedy

We go to the Panathenaico together to see end of Women Marathon. The entry is a bit chaotic, with contradicting directions being given – entry by the stadium, where tickets are still distributed at the official boot, or through a special entrance at the National Gardens, linked to stadium through a walled corridor. At these entrance lots of people waiting, then we are told to move away, as we cannot get in without tickets. Most of us have them, so it is a useless remark that confuses people. It takes a while to make it through the corridor – constantly stopped to be checked out, with lots of police. We catch a glimpse of two ‘Greek philosophers’ at a bench behind the fences, in the park, looking in on us. (Isn’t alcohol a banned substance at the Games?) Most of the crowd are Brits carrying flags. Every British person in Athens seems to be here, benefiting from the 10 euro ticket. Not difficult to get good seats near the finishing line – the stadium is large and we are early. We are just next to the media seats, which are indeed always the best (better than the VIPs designated area on the side). While we sit, we see Bridget McConnell and her husband the first Minister of Scotland Jack McConnell. A happy coincidence. We had a chance to say hello to them both. With them is the well known former British athlete Dame Mary Peters, creating a fuss as fans ask her for a signature. Japanese fans do not know what is happening (they ask us who she is) but also ask for a signature.

The stadium is in full swing with the British fans dancing and flashing their flags. A smaller contingent of Japanese fans is also visible. The race starts and Paula Radcliffe is leading, which brings cheers around the stadium. But she stops, unexpectedly, in the 23 mile mark – just 3 miles to go. She is in tears, and the stadium in disbelief. The Japanese runner wins the race, with all Japanese of a sudden getting prominence. We all cheer for the runners as they arrive, especially for Liz Yelling. When she arrives, Andy spots her husband Martin, an old friend from Bedford, and has a chance to talk with him.

It is nice to stay until the very end – the race started at 6pm and the final runner arrives around 9.45pm – almost 10pm. It feels like this is the real Olympic spirit. It is inspiring to see the reactions and appreciation of the runners who arrive exhausted and still have the strength to smile or send kisses to the crowd while they run the final lap. Several of them collapse after the finishing line and must be taken out in a stretcher. The Japanese winner, though, after a moment of rest, is unstoppable, running around everywhere, carrying the Japanese flag, talking to the media and then, after receiving flowers – one hour or so after winning – running up and down the seating area, mingling with the fans that follow her around. Andy manages to shake her hand. It is so funny! Like a Benny Hill show, says Chris, as we look at the Japanese running around after her, some of them in funny costumes, a group of them all dressed in bright pink. What a strange sight, in this so beautiful and solemn stadium! It is a nice feeling throughout, despite the sad end to Paula’s race.

We go for dinner in the Italian restaurant that is team Japan’s house after submerging our feet in the Kiatsu bath at the entrance. It consists of hot water and stones for massaging the soles of your feet. It is an initiative of the Japanese to promote healthy practices during the Games, and it works!

Visa Olympians meeting centre

After a big breakfast with our hosts, we get to the ZPC and spend some time taking photographs at the Olympic Truce stand. We will use these for our university press release and to distribute information about the Truce more widely. We also go around the Panathenaiko stadium to take some photographs while it is empty. It is such a beautiful and memorable stadium. Later on today we will come here to see the end of the women’s marathon. After lunch, we go to the Visa Olympians Meeting Centre to attend the International Olympic Academy Participants Association (IOAPA) reunion. It is a good chance to catch up with old ‘Olympic circle’ friends. Amongst the best surprises is seeing Thomas Kaptain, who is in excellent shape and funny as ever. We also see Kostas Georgiadis and his wife. Norbert Muller and Manfred Messing from Mainz University are also there. As is Holger Preuss from the same university with whom we have a brief chat.

We also have a chat with Evi, and a quick hello to Elisabeth Hanley who makes a speech to congratulate Laurel Iversen for her dedication to the IOAPA. We see Bob Barney, John Lucas and Cesar Torres but have no chance to say hi. We meet a UN culture and sport officer working in Kosovo who knows Ana Belen Moreno (from the Olympic Studies Centre in Barcelona). Ana Belen was working with him the year she went to Kosovo. He is an interesting person with a very interesting job. To be followed up. As always a bit of surprise as, in the end, we do not know so many people within the IOA world!

The longest time is spent with Noemi Monin from the Museum/OSC, now in charge of Summer Games Coordination – a post briefly held by Nuria Puig, who is now back at the OSC in Lausanne. She will be working on the Beijing links. We discuss our views about the Athens cultural programme. Few people knows about the ‘cultureguide’ and are often confused about the diversity of activity on offer.

We share most of the afternoon/ evening with Berta and Chris (from the Centre for Olympic Studies in Barcelona), who have had the chance to see some events through IOC support. They have collected lots of material (25kg) mainly through the Main Press Centre, where they were based. They also visited the ZPC and found it very useful and accessible.

Olympic park - athletics

A full day at OAKA today for the athletics. We depart at around 730am, missing our bus and, thus, taking around 40mins to get to the tram. We arrive at OAKA around 915am and are, again, able to sit where we like. So we get some near front-row seats to watch the Heptahlon long jump. Denise Lewis pulls out with injury, though looked good in the performance. A strong performance from Team GB’s Kelly Sotherton. We also ‘see’ the 100m heats, which include Maurice Greene, Kim Collins and Greg Campbell, though the sprint track is on the other side of the stadium, so we don’t really see much more than small dots of people and the television screens in the stadium. We took some time to get to know the OAKA complex. It is a bit desert-like, sand on the ground, seemingly unfinished, though possible to pass of as a traditional Mediterranean dry and dusty landscape! Sponsors are not too overwhelmingly, though are clearly present in the facilities spaces. Many Kodak and coke stands and the McDonalds restaurant is bursting at the seams. Water and food are reasonably priced though.

At 125pm we take the metro to Nea Ionia to see the DESTE foundation exhibit ‘Monument to Now’. Well worth a visit, though the volunteers around the area did not know about its existence.

Olympic opera

At 7pm we leave the ZPC for the Odeon of Herod Atticus. There we are going to see the opera ‘Rea’ by Spyros Samaras, which has been made famous because of its music becoming the basis for the modern Olympic Hymn. We are really exhausted and the hard stone seats do not help to make us feel relaxed, so we decide to leave at the end of act 1 and make a couple of tourists very happy with our tickets for the opera’s second half. We go out for dinner at Kolonnaki square, a very pleasant and upmarket area of the city were prices are high but service is truly excellent. We are lucky and have an uneventful public transport return to our flat.

Commonwealth connections

After the exhausting – but great – interviews session, Beatriz gets back to the Zappeion Press Centre to attend a press conference by the organisers of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006. During the press reception, we have a brief chat with Lord Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 Bid. He is happy to hear about our project and very encouraging. We also see Prof Kristine Toohey from University of Technology in Sydney, with whom Beatriz had worked during her experience at the Sydney Organising Committee for Games in years 1999 and 2000. The press conference is interesting enough, but the best part comes at the end, with the distribution of information backs and, best of all, nice Commonwealth pins. The pin mania is difficult to avoid in Olympic and related circles!.

Research intensive

A full research day for both of us. Andy spends time in the ZPC working on new archival material, promotion for the public communication of our work, articles for newspapers and subsequently visits the archaeological site in Athens. Despite it being summer and Games week, it is relatively empty. Beatriz has to go through a real marathon of interviews at the Hellenic Culture Organisation (HCO) headquarters. This is the group in charge of the Cultural Olympiad on behalf of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. The meetings start at 1pm and do not finish until practically 6pm. She receives great support from Takis Panagiotopoulos, HCO president advisor.

The first meeting is with Amaryllis Frangou, the director of communication. She is a very straight forward person who offers very useful information about the evolution of the Cultural Olympiad marketing and promotional campaigns. She shows videos of the Cultural Olympiad TV campaign from 2002 onwards. It is also helpful to learn about the progress of the logo and the notion of a ‘brand’ that is supposed to survive the end of the Games and become established as a permanent Cultural Foundation with a base in Greece.

The next interview is with Liza Tsaliki, director of international collaborations. It is excellent to meet her and it will be definitely be worth keeping in touch. She has an academic background in cultural and media studies and is good friends with Prof. Neil Blain from Paisley University in Glasgow, who happens to be the head of Andy’s school. The interview provides detailed information about the Olympiad wider (and complex!) political context and the difficulties in securing a broad international projection.

An unexpected meeting with Elias Vergidis, manager of the new Athens Culture Guide, proves very useful as well. The Guide is rapidly becoming a key reference point of Athens cultural agenda. It is by far the best guide to get an impression of the wide range of cultural activity happening in Athens during the Olympics, including not only ATHOC and Municipality cultural activities, but also the Cultural Olympiad, the Hellenic festival programme and a range of alternative offerings. The guide is supported by the HCO and has been set as a long term project.

The final meeting is with George Liontos, director of the ‘department of programme realization’, that is, the man in charge of cultural programming. He is a rather authoritative man, with a far reaching experience at the Ministry of Culture. He has a very good insight of the evolution of the Cultural Olympiad since its original inception in 1998 and is also well aware of the difficulties in confirming certain acts and responding to the very ambitious design of the Olympiad during the four years it has lasted. He offers a magnificent selection of Cultural Olympiad publications. These include several hard-back (and extremely heavy!) exhibition catalogues with great photographs, which are, indeed, extremely valuable additions to our Olympic culture library collection.

Ancient Olympia or bust

At 3.45am, we walk over to Syntagma to catch the media coach down to Olympia. This was not provided free and was actually quite expensive. Their luxury coach was far from being luxury and we did feel sorry for some of the media, many of whom were big guys with big equipment. The 5hr journey down to Olympia cannot have been easy. Most of the journalists were from the Main Press Centre and it was full. We arrive in Olympia at 9am and the route was quite different towards the end. Olympia had gone through some dramatic changes in recent months. Andy was last here in June 2003. Upon arriving, we discover that departure is not until 8pm – we had been told it was 1pm, after the shot put finished. This spoils our plan to be back in Athens for the Cultural Olympiad event tonight at 9pm, so new plans were necessary. The tour guide assures us she will find out about other possibilities, so we watch the event and relax a little. It is amazing how they have transformed the walk from Olympia down to the stadium, though there are nearly no water kiosks and certainly no food anywhere.

At around 1230pm, we rush to the restaurant to see if we can grab a bite before learning that we need to take the 1pm train back to Olympia to ensure we make it there for the evening. Shame, since it would have been good to talk more with the journalists, one of whom said that being in Olympia is the highlight of his career. So much for being cynical about the sports media journalist. Here we were in the heart of where sport began and it actually managed to touch someone in a very important way. How reassuring.

The train back to Athens was not much fun. First leg was packed in like chickens. The second leg began in a nice first class carriage, until we were moved and had to walk through a ‘raining’ carriage – air conditioning leaking into the train – and into our less air-conditioned, but dry carriage. It took around 6.5 hours to get back and we were exhausted by the end of it. Still, just enough time to get cleaned up for the Cultural Olympiad function.

Zappeion events

Later that day, the Expo 2008 Thessaloniki bid committee gave a presentation about their aims. That night, we would prepare for one of the ZPC culture events, an evening of Greek cuisine. We had hoped for a table with ZPC officials and it more or less worked out, except for an unusual Frenchman who decided to sit with all of us and show us photographs of him with, among others, the Pope! This was a truly bizarre evening, with somewhat serious consequences. The meal was supposed to be the one occasion when colleagues from the ZPC could sit and have some relaxing, together time. Well, while we had been invited to join their table, he had not and he was taking the last seat. Ultimately, the boss of the ZPC group dealt with it very professionally, but we did feel sorry for them! Anyway, the food was great, but nearly non-existence, so it was a quick McDonalds later. We stayed at the ZPC all night tonight, since tomorrow was the 4.30am departure to Olympia for the Shot put.

Athens by art

Depart home around 9.15am, Beatriz was due to meet Nelly Kyriazi, Director of the Municipal Gallery of Athens. She is meeting her to talk about her role as curator of the ‘Athens by Art’ contemporary public art programme being presented throughout the city during the Olympic fortnight. Andy was at the ZPC until 1230pm, conducting the daily archival work.

City scenes

Arrive at ZPC at 1130am only to find out that our Main Press Centre accreditation application has been declined. The ZPC officials are clearly not that influential when it comes to ATHOC accredited buildings. We go to the New Benaki Museum, another Cultural Olympiad venue; an impressive exhibition of clothing from a range of locations called ‘Ptychoseis=Folds+Pleats’. This is definitely one of the most extraordinary exhibitions during the Games. We then venture over to the Technopolis venue, an extensive complex of cultural centres and activity. There were few people around and the guard seemed desperate to talk to someone. One of the exhibits was a video of Olympic history, which included interviews with Olympic veteran academics John MacAloon and Norbert Mueller.

Back at the ZPC at 7pm to find out about a Torino 2006 function due to take place that night. No info is available, which ruins the plan for that evening. Instead, we take the evening to have some sushi and find some of the Catch the Light events. However, there was no information available about this at Syntagma square and the people handing out leaflets about it at Korai Square were almost invisible. At around 10pm, one of the ticket booths happened to be closing and we saw an argument between a visitor and an employee, the former of which was protesting at their closing so early. A fight very nearly broke out! The volunteers are so vulnerable sometimes and just get too hard a time from visitors.

The tram home functioned well.