1.3.4 THE BODY AND THE DESIGN PROCESS
3.6 PARKOUR AND COMMERCIALISM
Due to the sub-‐cultural nature of parkour it is also important to highlight how recording the characteristics of place is continually used as a means to document the emergence of new cultural forms. One example of a cultural form of expression in response to the qualities of the urban environment is the musical genre Hip Hop. Many aspects of the culture surrounding the hip–hop movement parallel that of the parkour community. Comparisons can easily be found between these two movements due to the associations that they have with subverting the hegemonic meaning of the built environment and the social codes that govern it. Both of these movements can also be seen as simultaneously playing on notions of topophilia (the love of a place) and topophobia (the fear of place). Although the value of hip–hop can often be interpreted in contradictory ways due to the nature of subject content, it is important to consider its significance as a way of documenting the social practices which define the identity of a place. As the cultural theorist Murray Forman explains,
In hip–hop and rap, the naming of streets and neighbourhood locales, cities, and regions of production activity reflects this spatial pattern with impressive consistency. This approach to place and scale returns us to the crucial notion that social relations produce and reproduce our comprehension of spatiality; there is no sense of place that can be derived in the absence of social processes, for it is lived processes themselves that ultimately inform our affective affiliations to sites of significance (2002, p. 8).
It is important to stress that a hip-‐hop soundtrack often accompanies the filmic representation of parkour to create music videos that exist as a hybrid of the two forms of creativity. By bringing these two movements together it is important to consider that both are regarded as expressions of being situated in an urban setting where one’s experiences are at odds with prevailing social conditions. Thus, Forman’s work speaks directly about the significance of personal acts of creativity as a means to signify the contemporary nature of the urban landscape, and essentially map its cultural milieu. This form of mapping that is prevalent within hip–hop culture can be seen as part of the impulsive behaviour that has been discussed by figures such as Harley (Harley, Woodward 1987, p. 1) and Castro (Castro 2010, p. 144). Thus, the references to particular streets, neighbourhoods, and cities within the lyrics of hip–hop and rap act as a record of a form of mapping that reflects a sub– cultural topophilia. It is important to highlight that hip–hop and rap have been a movement
that has emerged along with the music video culture of the 1980s that was propagated by satellite television such as MTV (Music Television) (Dahlgren, Murdock et al. 2000).
Hip-‐hop’s associations with satellite television suggest the movement’s transition from a means of representing the spatiality of the marginalised, to a business with global outreach. Forman explains that as hip–hop has been transformed from a tactic of sub– cultural communication, to a corporate strategy to produce commercialised forms of entertainment, the movement has become situated in a global–local nexus. Consequently, places that were characterised as being a ‘ghetto’ or ‘hood’ have become the ‘foundational geo–cultural references for a myriad of globalizing forces’ (Forman 2002, p. 342).
The commercial nature of hip–hop has meant that the documenting of place through the movement no longer serves as a means to communicate a personal affinity with a location, but rather as a means to turn the reputation of urban spaces, whether positive or negative into a commodity. By turning the narrative of a place into something that can be consumed around the world, hip–hop like parkour demonstrates the role that popular culture plays in relating the poetics of spaces to a global audience. The creation of music videos in both instances also demonstrates the role that film plays in communicating the characteristics of a place as a way of reinforcing a cultural identity that subverts the
proper meaning that is established through normative behaviour.
Other sub-‐cultural practices that resonate with that of parkour include that of the
dérive. The notion of the dérive devised by the Situationists as a tactic to critically address
the conventions of touring a city, involves documenting wanderings or drifts through the city–scape. In a similar fashion to parkour, dérives are intended to be acts of creativity that allow for the demonstration of personal expressions of how the city is interpreted, rather than how it is prescribed via the commercial endeavours of others. Thus, these psycho– geographical tours allow for the spontaneous and unplanned nature of the urban places to be examined as a method of experiencing the authentic qualities of city–life. It could equally be said that parkour critically addresses the nature of the contemporary city in order to achieve an authentic presence within it, in the sense that a narrative of participation and production rather than consumption defines it.
Through this study I build upon Debord’s questioning of urban culture, by examining the contemporary nature of the city of Liverpool as a retail destination and thus, a place of consumption. By actively engaging with the built environment, participants will have the opportunity to demonstrate the production of a city narrative rather than being a
passive consumer. In doing so the tours are examined as a means to communicate unique multi-‐sensory representation of the city.
As both the development of hip–hop and the dérives of the Situationists have shown, representations of city spatialities have been used both to subvert the intended meaning of the urban landscape, and to connect the locality of a place with a global context. As a result, these processes use the role of human experience to explore place as a condition that is socially constructed. The aforementioned movements also parallel parkour in their questioning of normative behaviour, which equally create opportunities for enterprise and political resistance in relation to the local–global nexus that shapes contemporary interpretations of cities.
Parkour’s connection to the local-‐global nexus is also evident in its affinity with the sports industry, and the desire within it to capitalise on concepts surrounding the urban environment as an athletic terrain. It is important to recognise that there is no singular way of understanding traceur’s relationship to the influence of sports companies. Although the philosophy of parkour has a number parallels with the ethos of major sports companies, many practitioners view them with irreverence, and favour a style of dress that negates the trends of mainstream sporting fashion. It is also important to stress that as an activity that requires no other equipment than the clothing of the individual, footwear is the most notable issue of great significance to practitioners. Due to the intense level of wear, their choice of footwear is not primarily driven by the visual aesthetics, but rather the physical integrity to resist damage and offer tactile qualities such as grip that allow for a desired engagement with the terrain and obstacles that they encounter. Footwear thus becomes the structure that enables practitioners to take on not only a literal foothold within space but also an existential one. Furthermore footwear mediates the way in which the psychological functions of orientation and identification discussed by Norberg-‐Schulz (1980) are expressed by traceurs. Traceurs preoccupation with footwear emphasises the negation of feet within contemporary society as a means to understand the world in which the body is situated. As the anthropologist Tim Ingold states, ‘boots and shoes, products of the ever more versatile hand, imprison the foot, constricting its freedom of movement and blunting its sense of touch’ (Ingold 2004, p. 319). In the context of parkour, footwear finds itself within a complex relationship with practitioners. Although low budget shoes such as
Kalenji, produced by the French sports company Decathlon has become iconic amongst the
community internationally, the sign value of parkour has meant that it has become the subject of great interest to the biggest sports companies.
Companies such as Nike have long had a reputation of marketing their brands using the visual language that articulates the cultural narratives associated with the intricacies of urban space and the proliferation of ideas that emerge from their culture. The presence of Nike’s distinctive swoosh logo is ubiquitous within youth culture, corresponding to the manner in which the brand is advertised to its target audience in order to maintain credibility. As Goldman and Papson argue;
For Nike, the symbolic value of the swoosh is rooted in its connection to authenticity of cultural expression. Nike’s approach to the ghetto is to confront its “authenticity”, both positive and negative. The ghetto basketball court, like the barbershop and the street corner, are public spaces in which cultural and political matters are socially expressed and bandied about [...] it is no accident that these are spaces which Nike ads adopt as settings (Goldman, Papson 1998, p. 103). This desire to represent sports settings that counter those of officialdom is also prevalent in the company’s marketing campaigns that reference freestyle sports. The focus of freestyle sports such as football or basketball is their displacement from the controlled conditions of the pitch and the court to public spaces, opening up new opportunities for spontaneous events to take place. Ordinarily sports such as football could be considered as games that play on the orientation of space, and as such freestyle football puts greater emphasis on the identification of a place’s particular characteristics. In the marketing of products using freestyle Sports, companies such as Nike, not only stress the informal origins of sports, but also amalgamate sport with other aspects of contemporary entertainment culture such as music, dance, and film. 21
21 In 1999 the Nike brand was manifested into the flagship Niketown store in Berlin. The marketing
strategy accompanied this store used the concept of urban interventions as a means to create a bond between the values of the company and narrative of the city. As Von Borries explains;In the campaign for the opening of Niketown Berlin, Nike formulated a counter – image to the existing city, describing a new city that would be freer, less controlled, more spontaneous. But this city must be first fought for, conquered, and Nike lays claim to the role of organizing resistance against the regimentation of the city, presenting itself as an actual resistance movement (Borries 2004, p. 33). This campaign alludes to the acts of resistance by urban guerrillas of the 1970s and, sub–cultural movements such as graffiti, fake–media guerrillas and campaigns á la action art (Borries 2004, p. 33). In addition to the visual language applied by Nike, the sports company also orchestrated sports events that communicated their brand identity in a parallel nature; consequently Niketown Berlin was used as a hub for the promotion of freestyle football events. The aim of these events was to
Nike’s strategy to co–opt unorthodox freestyle sports was also greatly assisted by the emergence of video sharing websites such as YouTube, which allowed athletes such as non–professional footballers to showcase their skills to a global audience. Building upon the strategies developed in places such as Berlin, Nike began to use the visual language of sub– cultural movements that were emerging with assistance of the Internet to promote their brand.22 I argue that the use of the traceur’s athleticism along with other street sports, suggests the ability that Nike products have to offer consumers as a means to master the urban environment and find a sense of place within it. Due to the uncertainty and intimidation associated with environments such as the French banlieue and the American ghetto, dwelling cannot be understood as simply being rooted in the primordial and essentialised sense being discussed by Heidegger. Rather, when examining the sign value of place in the context of marketing freestyle sports, it extends beyond the traditional processes that define a sense within a protected place, and should be considered in light of the work of figures such as Doreen Massey and theories of becoming.23
associate the Nike brand identity with a form of football that did not conform to the sensibilities of classical club sports (Borries 2004, p. 33).
22 In 2002, Nike commissioned a series of adverts that used parkour as a centrepiece for the launch
of the Presto shoe line. Nike’s reputation as a company at the cutting edge of cultural trends highlights how parkour was identified as a practice that captured the spirit of the times and
represented the nature of the brand’s often-‐subversive character. The adverts used Parisian suburbs as their backdrop, and despite the intended Anglophone audience, featured a French voiceover with subtitles that gave the piece the feel of a foreign language documentary. Nike’s use of this
environment parallels its more common use of the ghetto in the American context in its advertising strategies, and highlights the associations that academics have discussed that exist between the two spatial constructs (see Wacquant 2008).
23 By examining the notion of place in terms of its social relationships Massey argues that place
identities are provisional and unfixed and is linked to the process of becoming rather than a state of being (Dovey 2010, p. 5). Thus sports companies such as Nike express a reflexive awareness of the notion of displacement and the novelty of unorthodox readings of urban place identities. This can be seen as a continuation of Nike’s ability to identify with the sign values of; ‘hipness, irreverence, individualism, narcissism, self–improvement, gender equality, race equality, competiveness, and health.’ (Gereffi, Korzeniewicz 1994, p. 258)
Nike’s adoption of parkour as a cultural extension of the banlieue has been accredited with boosting their sales by almost $200million (Stapleton, Terrio 2010, p. 4), a clear demonstration of the ability that parkour’s aesthetic has in permeating through global popular culture. The documentary style characteristics of the adverts also highlighted Nike’s desire to capture the authenticity of parkour as an activity that promotes athleticism as an individualistic pursuit rather than a movement that coerces the social ordering associated with conventional sports. By having traceurs effectively endorse Nike running shoes, and the Nike brand equally approved by the parkour community, both parties helped to establish the notion that both parkour and Nike had the ability to enhance the contemporary urban experience. Therefore, the revenue that is attributed to Nike’s use of parkour as a marketing tool demonstrates the financial value of the movement as an alternative expression of athleticism.
The traceurs appearance in the adverts expressed a growing interest in the commercial use of parkour as a visual sensation, and helped to establish traceurs ability to develop themselves as ‘brands’ akin to professional footballers. Similarly the visual aesthetics associated with these freestyle sports plays upon an identity that is defined by the mediation of footwear between an individual and the cityscape. Companies such as Nike therefore capitalise upon the sign values of their products, the athletic body and the urban landscape to reinforce the notion of an urban code that defines feelings of being–in and being–out of place. Additionally, the affinity that individuals have developed with parkour both as a source of entertainment and as an activity to participate in demonstrates the importance of human mobility as a way of creating a personalised sign value. The messages communicated through expressive forms of mobility within the urban environment are inevitably interpreted in a number of different ways, however due to the nature of parkour’s origins, it is appropriate to consider it as a demonstration re– territorialising the environment one is situated within.
As parkour continues to be identified as a recognised activity there is an increasing amount of entrepreneurialism amongst practitioners to develop their own parkour branded clothing. The appropriation of the strategies developed by Nike demonstrates how the parkour community both represents a culture that is influenced by, and influences the practices of brands that are globally recognised. In so doing, parkour has evolved into a commodity sign which does not exist in isolation, but rather speaks directly to the ideas of self–empowerment and transcendence generated by corporations such as Nike, expressing their mantra of Just Do It. Perhaps more notably, the creation of parkour specific brands
demonstrates the use of clothing to situate the body within an assemblage which mediates the experience within urban space. Groups such as the aforementioned UrbanFreeflow and Parkour Generations market the designs of their clothing as both a means to help identify with the challenges found within the urban terrain, and as a signifier that allows individuals to be identified with those challenges. This direct connection with the very textures of an environment creates a full bodily sense of authenticity, a condition that speaks directly to the essence of dwelling.