Call for Entries - Drain Magazine: ATHLETICISM

The word ‘athletic’ derives from the Greek, athlēō (‘compete for a prize’). In this schema, the ‘prize’ is the thing competed for, but this can be defined in many ways: as a gift, a kiss, a drop of blood, or a ribbon. We are often told that the prize is not important but participation is. The athlete models subjectivity, the body, desire, social relations, matter and chance in order to achieve a measure of success, recognition, mastery, the deferral of death and emptiness, a place in history, an apotheosis of self-love, among other things.

How can artworks, essays, thought experiments, interventions, social events and encounters allow us to critically analyze and even undo the habitual idioms, rules and expectations surrounding athleticism as a measure or even as an outcome? Is it possible to create a differently dispersed athleticism that shows us what a body can do, what a care of the body can mean, or indeed, arranges new relations between bodies in order to attain a hitherto unimaginable prize?

In what ways can we think through/work away from/deconstruct the fascistic tendencies of the ‘competitive spirit’ in order to arrange new rhythms and durations, participative networks and subjectivities? Can athleticism be situated within a more radical play of performances and acts that involve unanticipated outcomes and risks? Put in another way, how can a radical undoing of the telos of the athlete lead us to redefine what is worth struggling for?

What are the parallel roles of endurance, discipline, failure in sports and cultural production?

How do artists explore the making, breaking and rearranging of rules, strategies, structures and histories of these visual, spatial, temporal and embodied games?


Submission deadline: January 30, 2015

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