ARTelevision

I notice the discussion in the Tilted Sports forum concerning whether or not NASCAR is a "sport."

Semantics just doesn't get to the heart of this, as far as I'm concerned. I'm interested in those who see something in auto racing that is significant in ways that are not often discussed in sporting forums.

Here's my initial thoughts on the subject. Your comments are welcome.

...................

I have an overarching interest in the union of man and machine/man and computer/man and technology. These correspondences, which distinguish us from most of the things other species do, fascinate me as little else does about homo sapiens.

I see us as not being separate from our culture/technology since the days before our ancestors climbed down from trees and began their habitation of caves. What this means to me is that for at least the last hundred thousand years, there has not been a human animal that is an entity that can be distinguished from a man/machine entity. We use machines to the degree that they become us and we become them. That’s just how it looks to me. I’m amused by those who see us as something different from our technology. It is a popular fiction – but a fiction nonetheless.

Taking it as I do that we are a man/machine entity, I prefer activities that acknowledge this fact. I do not have a lot of appreciation for romantic notions of the individual human who stands opposed (somehow) to technology or to its embrace. I see such ideas as throwbacks to a mythical time when the contemporary landscape was not a biomechanical entity and the merits of individuals could be measured by the effort of their sinews alone.

Even when I attend "sporting" events designed to highlight the unadorned facility of biology, I’m acutely aware of the artificial nature of play surfaces, implements of sport, the technology of gadgets that surround even the most "natural" activities, high-tech training tools, devices, diets, and medicine, bioengineered “athletes,” and environmental conditions that are intimately wrapped up in the relationship of humans and their culture/technologies.

In this context it seems to me that NASCAR racing represents the ultimate presentation of the facts of the matter. I am involved in that to the extent that it satisfies my voyeuristic sporting and competitive interests in ways that no other form of “watching” can match.

As a biomechanical/electronic/cybernetic entity myself, I actually feel something “contemporary” and “in the present” when I watch auto racing. I grew up with a dirt track and a drag strip in my weekly schedule and my fascination for the drama of man/machine interaction has never abated.

When I look around myself what I see is a terraformed planet in which “Nature” exists as an unattainable goal. It is a fine place within which to find ourselves and a fine place for deep personal encounters but it is not the world we actually live in. If this seems counter to my oft-professed love of the natural landscape and its creatures, it represents the inner conflict that constitutes the definition of being human as I see it.

I understand that I am not of this world but am a construction, an amalgam, an assemblage of chemicals and cultural nuts and bolts – many of them are man-made and many of them are not. I am most wholly myself when I acknowledge both aspects of my being.

__________________
create evolution