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The Contemporary Sublime and the Culture of Extremes: Parkour and Finding the Freedom of the City

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The Contemporary Sublime and the Culture of Extremes: Parkour and Finding the Freedom of the City Amanda du Preez the contemporary sublime and the culture of extremes: parkour and finding the freedom of the city BIOGRAPHY Amanda du Preez completed her Doctoral studies at the University of South Africa in 2002 with the title Gendered Bodies and New Technologies. The thesis has one founding premise, namely that embodiment constitutes a non-negotiable prerequisite for human life. Over the past 15 years she has lectured at the University of Pretoria, University of South Africa, the Pretoria Technikon, and the Open Window Art Academy, on subjects ranging from Art History, Visual Communication, and Art Therapy to Open and Distance Learning. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pretoria, in the Department of Visual Arts, and teaches Visual Culture and Art History. In 2005 she co-authored South African Visual Culture with J. van Eeden (Van Schaik: Pretoria). The following publications are forthcoming: Gendered Bodies and New Technologies: Re-thinking Embodiment in a Cyber Era (Unisa Press) and Taking a Hard Look: Gender and Visual Culture (Cambridge Scholars Press). Her field of expertise includes gender and feminist theories, virtual and cyber culture, bio-politics, new technologies, and film and 16 visual culture. → The aim is to explore and probe the possible ways in which the discourse of the sublime, as a modern aesthetic category, has mutated and morphed into the postmodern contemporary visual culture of extremes - extreme sports, extreme adventures, and extreme entertainment. The extreme activity of Le Parkour or obstacle-coursing, described by David Belle, its ‘founder’, as finding new and often dangerous ways through the city landscape – scaling walls, roof-running and leaping from building - to building, is identified as an interesting prospect for teasing out the postmodern contemporary visual culture of extremes. Le Parkour appears to fit with the working premise, namely that the sublime as discourse figures as leitmotiv in the representation and mediation of these extreme activities. In what follows, no in-depth critical engagement with Parkour and the sublime is proposed. Rather my exploration serves merely to articulate and propose a possible analogy between the discourse of the sublime and contemporary visual cultures of extremes as manifested in Parkour. representation and spatial practices in urban south africa 17 the contemporary sublime and the culture of extremes: parkour and finding the freedom of the city TOP: Mark Madeo Andrey Pfenning, hand spin Courtesy of the artist LEFT: Mark Madeo Victor Laforte, cat balance Courtesy of the artist 18 representation and spatial practices in urban south africa the contemporary sublime and the culture of extremes: parkour and finding the freedom of the city Finding one’s way in the city has been a negotiated act each other across roof tops.” Penz (2003:362) traces of combined skill and the necessary aloofness, if the the development of Parkour from ‘computer screen’ to modernist flâneur is anything to go by. As the modern ‘life’ and finally onto the silver screen. In this regard, Luc city changed, so the city walker had to find other ways Besson’s cult film Yamakasi – Les samouraïs des temps of dealing with the concrete jungle than did the flâneur modernes (2001) immortalised Parkour, as did the latest strolling the arcades of the late 19th-century metropoles Bond film, Casino Royale. “demand[ing] elbow room … unwilling to forgo the life of a gentleman at leisure”, while mixing ambivalently with the But what are the characteristics of Parkour? The follow- crowd and remaining acutely aware of “their essentially ing terms are often used when describing it: ‘urban or inhuman make-up” (Benjamin 1982:174). Walking the street gymnastics with a spiritual side’, ‘free running city these days and pertinently the ‘city in crisis’, requires emphasising speed, flow and grace’, ‘precision running’, different skills more akin to the gravity-defying agility of ‘serious play’ and ‘treating urban obstacles as athletic a Neo or a Trinity in The Matrix or the amazing swiftness challenges. It has been called a ‘discipline’, ‘self-discovery of Spiderman. This is where the almost superhuman or and self-improvement’ and a ‘lifestyle’. The practitioners rather the “high risk leisure” (Stranger 1999) activity of are called traceurs, derived from tracer bullets (a bullet Parkour leaps into view. In this extreme activity the urban or shell whose course is made visible in flight by a trail of city becomes the backdrop which requires acute agility flames or smoke, used to assist in aiming), which already and the ability to interpret the surfaces and obstacles of indicates something of the philosophy and movement the urban jungle with precision and grace. The cityscape behind it. In order to participate in Parkour one requires is now turned into an obstacle course, an exciting maze no special equipment except “a pair of trainers” and and conquerable jungle. The Parkour activist dangles and “a free mind” (Bryan & Nylind 2003:46). Parkour also jumps with the skill of the circus acrobat, balancing and differs from the skateboarding culture in the sense that carefully assessing each situation like a tightrope walker. although “the sport may be about reclaiming the city streets … it’s done without leaving a mark” (Law 2005). In Parkour has its roots in combat, as it is named after other words – Parkour does not leave traces in the form of obstacle-course training in the French army. The founders graffiti, for instance. It is also geared at creating a “sense of the movement, David Belle and Sébastian Foucan, of community” (Law 2005). In the words of a Toronto developed this new obstacle-tracking through the city and Parkour participant, ‘Ferret’ (his nickname) (cited in suburbs of Paris during the 1980s, and decided to name Law 2005): “There is no competition at all, nobody it after the army training called parcours du combatant. makes fun because you can’t do something”. In other The term can be translated into ‘line’, ‘course’, ‘circuit’, words, the participants of this uniquely new, serious yet ‘road’, ‘way’ or ‘route’ as a noun, and as a verb into ‘to travel uncompetitive sport can, in some ways, be considered to through’, ‘to run over or through’, ‘to traverse’. In English- be the ‘saintly bullets of the streets’, since they also do not speaking countries, Le Parcours has been adapted into participate in illegal activities unless they accidentally Parkour or PK for short. The interest in Parkour globally trespass or damage property. However, Parkour does was sparked by the BBC documentary Jump London in have a punch and in fact demonstrates “a resistance to the 2003, which also sparked my interest in the topic. In city’s disciplinary functions, particularly as they manifest South Africa, and specifically Johannesburg, Parkour has in the urban street ‘grid’” and the “gridlocked traffic, the a steadily growing popularity, especially among campus flashing tail-lights, the ‘STOP’ light and ‘WAIT’ sign[s].” populations. South Africans were introduced to it in the (Geyh 2006:3) With its emphasis on flow, Parkour creates recent Glassfit advertisement entitled ‘Jump’. Shot in the a movement against the “conformity, regulation, and inner-city of Johannesburg, the advert gave one of the confinement” of urbanised space. (Geyh 2006:3) leading South African experts, Emile Sievers, a chance to show his ‘rubber’.1 Traceurs are not in agreement, however, as to whether Parkour can be defined as an extreme sport or not. Trying Parkour can be said to be inspired as much by the very hard to defy all rumours that it is a dangerous sport/ computer gaming industry as the ways in which space is activity, they seem to steer clear of the extreme label. effectively virtualised through new media. As Francois Parkour does nevertheless subscribe to forms of extremism Penz (2003:362) contends: “Clearly a most dangerous in my view, firstly, by putting an unlimitation on limitation (and illegal) activity, this new form of urban flânerie has itself. Statements and affirmations by traceurs, such as: been inspired this time, not so much by films ... but by a ‘If you want to run up a wall, you can’; ‘I can go anywhere’ whole generation of computer games (Ninja series, Deus and ‘We believe that anything is possible for those who are Ex Machina, Counter Strike) where contenders chase willing to try’ only emphasise the unlimitation associated representation and spatial practices in urban south africa 19 the contemporary sublime and the culture of extremes: parkour and finding the freedom of the city ABOVE Jonathan Lucas Shell Jump Courtesy of the artist TOP LEFT fig 6 Brixton 1996 TOP fig 7 Hillbrow 1997 Mark Madeo Austin Gall, SECOND ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT jump over gap fig 8 Hillbrow 1997 Courtesy of the artist fig 9 Brixton 1997 ABOVE THIRD ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT Ben Ellis fig 10 Joubert Park 1989 Fly-over Hang fig 11 Braamfontein 1997 Courtesy of the artist BOTTOM fig 12 Braamfontein 1997 20 representation and spatial practices in urban south africa the contemporary sublime and the culture of extremes: parkour and finding the freedom of the city with it. Secondly, the regular connotations made between Parkour and freedom, such as ‘free play’, ‘free run’ and ‘fluid like water’ further confirms the link. As Paula Geyh (2006:3) articulates this freedom: “One might see parkour as an overcoming of social space through the interplay of body and material barriers. The body becomes the instrument of freedom.” In fact, Parkour is even related to a ‘heroic’ activity in its quest for freedom from urban obstacles and impediments. Parkour does result in injuries regularly, although it tries to avoid these at all costs, and has even resulted in the odd fatality.2 Nevertheless, Jaclyn Law affirms (2005) “parkour may be dangerous, [but] it isn’t reckless or random.” Parkour adheres to the goal of connecting “several moves in a fluid, unbroken string while running as if your life depends on it” (Law 2005).
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