In 1966 West Germany and England played in the championship world cup game. This was just 21 years after the end of WW II and it was a big game. The outcome was controversial with questions about the ref's call.
Paul Pfeiffer recreates the event is a huge piece we saw at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin last week.
The video is short, but gives you a better sense of this piece than I could describe. And one has to assume, that with the popularity of football (soccer) around the world, this is art for the masses.
It said that the sound in the original video of the game wasn't good enough, so he hired about 1000 Filipinos in Manila to recreate the cheers of the crowd and combined the original with the new sound recording.
This was a famous soccer (football) match. A half billion watched it on TV.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the artist feeling compelled to have to gin up more sound. I imagine that WC final was one of the noisiest outdoor athletic contests in human history.
Sure enough, following the link you provide to the wikipedia article on this match, one of the most well-known anecdotes on the game is there:
"German supporters cite the possible bias of the Soviet linesman (Bakhramov was from Azerbaijan), especially as the USSR had just been defeated in the semi-finals by West Germany. Bakhramov later stated in his memoirs that he believed the ball had bounced back not from the crossbar, but from the net and that he was not able to observe the rest of the scene, so it did not matter where the ball hit the ground anyway. When Bakhramov was asked on his deathbed how could he be sure the third goal had crossed the line, he was alleged to have replied 'Stalingrad'."
ps - I coached soccer for nine years, and habe attended matches in each of my European visits.
Phil, Thanks for filling in more details. As I understood it, the quality on the surviving video wasn't good enough for what he had in mind - this large empty room filled with speakers recreating the roar of the crowd. Obviously my little Canon sound transferred to blogspot only gives you a hint of the experience. You can hear the crowd roaring in the other exhibits downstairs before you come upon the sign and the stadium model upstairs.
ReplyDelete