Skateboarding and Religion by Paul O’Connor

Author:Paul O’Connor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030248574
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

An Enhanced Experience of Space

Evident in the subcultural media of skateboarding, and in various academic works, is the disposition that skateboarders are privy to some essential esoteric knowledge. This reveals itself in various ways, an aloof almost aristocratic attitude, an artistic and style-conscious modus operandi. In one skateboarding blog the writer refers to non-skateboarders as muggles (Neverwas, 2018). This term for non-magic folk from the Harry Potter series of J. K. Rowling highlights that skateboarders consider themselves as having an ‘enhanced experience’ of reality (Borden, 2019, p. 211), qualitatively different from other people. This in part may be due to the way skateboarders see ludic possibilities everywhere. Commenting on an art exhibition, Newman (2015, p. 129) notes that the skateboard artist ‘shows us that the bleak rationalism of the urban environment can be resisted, its cultural signifiers reclaimed to create a more fulfilling set of daily encounters.’ The notion that skateboarding is a tool in creating a more fulfilling life is significant here. It underlines how place becomes meaningful and even sacred.

We can confidently assert that skateboarders experience space differently from other athletes. Borden’s (2001) groundbreaking analysis of skateboarding applies the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre and shows that skateboarders create places of meaning that they derive from functional street architecture. One distinct example is the handrail that is designed for support and safety as one traverses down steps; for the skateboarder it is transformed into an item of dangerous spectacle to be slid and grinded upon with acute balance and timing. Not all skateboarding occurs in the street; stadiums and skateparks are increasingly prominent (Lombard, 2010; Thorpe & Wheaton, 2017), some even achieving heritage status (Brown, 2014). However, it is the case that many important places in skateboarding are overlooked, banal, functional architecture. Borden (2001, pp. 224–225) reproduces a two-page spread from a skateboard magazine that shows only curbs, drain covers, and tarmac with poetic prose overlaid. Similarly a book on DIY skatespots constructed throughout the world shows virtually no skateboarding, only the vacant spaces of concrete transitions and curbs (Gilligan, 2014).

While previously videos distributed on VHS and magazines were central in communicating space, now social media reinforces this importance. During the writing of this chapter I observed Instagram clips of the latest tricks at Hollywood High, El Toro, or Barcelona’s MACBA, and also references to historic skateboard videos, and the past achievements of professional skateboarders. These discussions, or the Instagram clips, then became the subject of conversations amongst skateboarders. One clip, for example, a switch backside tail slide by Tiago Lemos in June 2017, first appeared on Instagram (@brian_panebianco, 2017) but was shared throughout the skateboard media world, appearing in Thrasher (Thrasher Magazine, 2017), The Berrics (2017) and blogs (Boil the Ocean, 2017) and many more locations. One evening I was having a meal with four other skateboarders and when someone mentioned Tiago Lemos, everyone acknowledged the trick he had performed, commenting on either the height, the fact it was switch, or the location. Each had witnessed the

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