The presence and metamorphoses of the cinematic eye. In Krytyka, No. 9 (119), 2007, pp. 21-22.

The article offers a review of Ulrich Gumbrecht's book In Praise of Athletic Beauty, which thematically continues his work Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey and examines sport as an aesthetic event. The material consists of an introduction and two parts.

In the introduction, the author raises the question of the attainability in the modern era of Gumbrecht's declared ideal of human life, where body and mind could simultaneously experience the same thing.

The first part contains a brief description of the structure of the book and examines the opposition between the categories of “meaning” and “presence.” Referring to Gumbrecht's ideas, the author highlights immediacy and dissolution in the intensity of events as key characteristics of presence.

The second part analyzes the influence of visual technologies on our perception of reality, using Leni Riefenstahl's film “Olympia” as an example. The author suggests that the image of the 1936 Olympic Games formed in Riefenstahl's film still mediates our view of sport in reality. She concludes that it is possible to combine the experiences of the mind and body thanks to the interactivity of modern mass media.