Sonic Sport: Sound Art in Leisure Research

Starting from the premise that sound is an important aspect of leisure experience neglected within existing research, this article presents a discussion of a creative project to explore ways of encouraging sensitivity to sound in televised sport. We discuss a short film, Super cfc, in which sound and image samples of televised soccer were electronically manipulated and recombined resulting in the de-familiarization of conventionalized audio-visual interactions. The article explores the ways that creative practice can destabilize dominant discourses in televised sport and opening up ways for audiences to become attuned to the capacity of sound to enrich and shape leisure activities. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Leisure Sciences for the following free supplementary resources: three sound files corresponding to the three movements from Super cfc. This soundtrack may be used in “forced marriage” experiments with image sequences from televised sports events.]