UC Santa Cruz

Throwing is a performance and installation that was created to be staged at Heap is Full, the 2023 UCSC Digital Arts and New Media MFA exhibition. The performance is a three-part, three-and-a-half-hour durational audiovisual reflection on the act of pitching in the wake of Major League Baseball (MLB) adopting a pitch clock in order to speed up the pace of play during the 2023 season; it considers the previously less-bounded temporal nature of baseball as queer through an affective depiction of a training pitcher. The installation displays the documentation of the performance in varying forms and at varying durations to gesture at the compression of temporality in baseball and its media; it also includes an elapsed timer that shows the amount of time that the gallery has been open for that day, calling attention to the communal temporal experience of the exhibition in which gallery attendees are taking part. This paper provides context regarding the personal history, research, and ideas that led to the creation of this work. First, I discuss my personal relationship to baseball. Then, I trace a brief history of temporal developments in baseball and Bananaball, along with a recounting of baseball’s race and gender segregation. I then touch on formations in queer temporal theory and pieces of experimental art involving athletics that influenced Throwing. I describe the performance and installation of Throwing in detail, before highlighting theoretical connections and syntheses that are explored in the work. I conclude with reflections on the success of the project and future directions I can take in my work.