"The STAREMASTER film is about watching, what watching means, and as such, it gets to the very heart of cinema itself.

 

"Vernon... Marilyn Manson... Deicide...Genitorturers... shooting abortion doctors... now this.

What is it about Florida that  creates these things?"  --Jello Biafra

 

In February of 2000, Sean Linezo produced the first in a series of publicly advertised staring contests. Billed as “hardcore, multi-mediated, eye-to-eye combat,” STAREMASTER, as these tournaments of tolerance would come to be known, was an instant phenomenon.

 

The secret of success may be that, STAREMASTER simply magnifies the playground pastime of staring contests to gloriously absurd proportions. The simplest and most immediate form of one-on-one competition is exaggerated and over-produced and presented as a multi-media viral marketing spectacle.

 

The live-event gameshow engages the audience in a format that seamlessly blends the  philosophies of Merv Griffin, Jean Baudrillard and the WWF with the aesthetics of Andy Warhol, John Cage and The Price is Right. “We have transformed ‘nothing happening’ into the pretense for truly epic battles,” explains Linezo. “The staring contest itself has become an interactive spectator sport.”