JER THORP

"The time of the game becomes almost like pilgrimage time. Like ‘public time’, which is the chronological equivalent of ‘public space. It is basically about finding ways to make the public space intimate, and yet to do it without going directly to Kumbaya. Under the guise of football, we actually testify to each other’s existence." - Teju Cole

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Collaborators:

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Teju Cole

Mario Klingemann

Noa Younse

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A good portion of sports fans across the globe found themselves sitting in front of a TV yesterday to watch Germany and Argentina duke it out in the World Cup, and artists Teju Cole, Jer Thorp, and Mario Klingemann wanted to make something out of that rare worldwide connection. "Simultaneous spectatorship has been possible for decades," Cole writes on Twitter, "but global social networks have now made it highly visible." Cole asked his followers to tweet photos of their television or computer as they watched the game, tagging the photos with their location, the minute on the game clock, and the hashtag "thetimeofthegame."

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The result is Time of the Game, a collection of photos from people watching the World Cup across the globe. The site displays 100 photos at a time, all overlaid on top of each other to create a single dreamlike world centered around a television set that's showing the game. 

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Time of the Game was presented as an immersive installation at the National Football Museum in Manchester in 2015.

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