Ballgame (Pregame) comprises an audio recording evoking the kind of speculation and analysis commonly preceding an impending baseball game. Janice Kerbel has worked with the past 100 years of baseball statistics to construct a mathematically ‘average’ game, to play with what is widely considered the most quantified and statistically exploited sport in the world. Pregame represents the first part of this major, ongoing project that will eventually encompass a complete, play-by-play single-voice announcement of the full sequence of nine innings of a carefully scripted, but unplayed, baseball game. The work allows for a scrutiny of the performance of language, the tenor of hope and disappointment, anticipation and distraction.
Janice Kerbel, Ballgame (Pregame), 2009, audio recording, loudspeaker, stand, dimensions variable