Kerrison presented at the 39th annual OFTI conference, Uppsala, Sept. 21-22.
Did you SEE that? The co-construction of a match between two invisible wrestlers
In the execution of a professional wrestling move it is often the recipient that will actually make the move look impressive by “selling” it with their reaction. Recipients will stagger backwards to make a light punch look hard or jump as their opponent lifts them to make the feat of strength look effortless. Some wrestlers are so skilled at making opponents look formidable that it’s said they “could have a good match with a broom”. This compliment has since inspired a tradition of skilled wrestlers having matches against inanimate objects and “invisible” opponents as displays of their ability to “sell” the impression of a contest under any circumstances. This paper examines an instance of the trope being taken to its absurd extreme: a match between two invisible wrestlers. Like a wrestler “selling” an attack from a broom, this match serves as a display of skill for the referees, announcers, and audience who also play their own heightened roles to “sell” the wrestler’s actions as a contest. Through the referee’s reactions and the audience’s cheering, they manage to co-construct an entirely make-believe match. Multi-modal interaction analysis of the data explores how negotiations of gaze, gesture, and vocalizations by the attendees are used to achieve mutual understanding of the factors necessary to “watch” the match. This includes eye gaze and body positioning marking locations of the competitors, crowd reactions and gestures deciding which empty space is the hero and villain, and knowledge of common wrestling sequences providing cues for what is “happening” moment-by-moment. This research contributes to ongoing work on collective cheering as more than a natural or automatic response to spectacle or charisma, instead highlighting the necessity for mutual monitoring by crowds (Clayman, 1993) through an instance of it being the only real resource.
Non-lexical vocalizations 