Looking for new ways that would move human society beyond the limits of national identity, Tadej Pogačar invited United States artists Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh to join him in creating a new olympic torch relay to carry the flame for Equipo Terrestre across the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Called Lampadedromia, Puerto Rico 2004 after the greek word for torch relay. Anyone could participate - there were no restrictions on nationality or citizenship, age or background - and artists from around the world joined with Puerto Ricans to carry the torch. (…….) The relay run in San Juan and Rincón served, in the tradition of interweaving art and life, as a correction or critique of the official ceremony in Athens (in 2003) even before that ceremony took place. At the same time, it pointed, again, to the fact that even in the area of sport, the greatest amount of social activity occurs outside the mainstream corporate media spectacle. This performative art action returned the alienated Olympic practice to the physical, social, and ethical frameworks of everyday life in a chosen local environment, which thus became visible as a true representation of the world population, in short, of all that the Olympic Games declare to be the basis of their operations.
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