Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Physical and the Digital City
  4. Chapter

Parkour, the City, and Mediated Subjectivities

image of Parkour, the City, and Mediated Subjectivities

A provocation: move from point A to point B in as straight a line as possible, reconfiguring your body as necessary. Parkour is a movement practice and discipline that involves running, jumping, vaulting, swinging, and flipping around, across, and through obstacles as they are encountered in the urban landscape. Its practitioners navigate the city in unexpected and subversive ways, imagining new political possibilities of existence with their movement. While most parkour scholarship has discussed the practice in terms of its spatial, political, and philosophic dimensions as a self-contained metaphor and object, little scholarship has looked to the cultural productions of parkour itself. As a dynamic and relatively young movement practice, parkour has evolved alongside the development of digital camera technologies and online social media, and as such, has a rich media culture that reflects parkour's unique relationship to movement and urban space. As camera technologies have become smaller, lighter, mobile, and more affordable, parkour's practitioners and the community have leveraged these emerging technologies to create new assemblages of media, bodies, and urban architectures that are easily shared via online platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. How do these movements, visions, and technologies inform our perceptions of public life and public space? What implications do these apparatus hold for our understandings of these assemblages? Following Jacques Rancière's articulation of aesthetics as a “specific regime for identifying and reflecting on the arts: a mode of articulation between ways of doing and making, their corresponding forms of visibility, and possible ways of thinking about their relationships”, I examine the aesthetics of first person (FPV), 360 camera, and drone perspectives as well as the editing practices and narrative trends of parkour media productions to offer a parkour subjectivity of the city, one that understands the city as dynamic, relational, material, in-process, and embodied.

Keywords: parkour ; technologies of vision ; urban cinematics ; urban landscape ; visual culture ; visual production

Hardback ISBN: 9781835950326
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

Parkour, the City, and Mediated Subjectivities
Intellect , 205 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835950326_13
/content/books/9781835950326.c11
/content/books/9781835950326.c11
Loading

Data & Media loading...

References

  1. Atkinson, Michael . “Heidegger, Parkour, Post-Sport, and the Essence of Being.” In A Companion to Sport, edited by David L. Andrews and Ben Carrington , Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies 15. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013 .
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Branigan, Edward . Point of View in the Cinema: A Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film, Reprint 2010, Approaches to Semiotics 66. Berlin: Mouton, 1984. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110817591.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bolter, David J , and Richard A. Grusin . “Remediation.” Configurations (Baltimore, MD) 4, no. 3 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1353/con.1996.0018.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Brunner, Christoph . “Nice-Looking Obstacles: Parkour as Urban Practice of Deterritorialization.” AI & SOCIETY 26, no. 2 (2011): 143–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-010-0294-2.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bruno, Giuliana . Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso, 2002.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Chamayou, Grégoire . A Theory of the Drone. New York: The New Press, 2015.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Chandler, Katherine Fehr . “A Drone Manifesto: Re-Forming the Partial Politics of Targeted Killing.” Catalyst (San Diego, CA) 2, no. 1 (2016): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v2i1.28832.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Chateau, Dominique . Subjectivity: Filmic Representation and the Spectator's Experience, Key Debates in Subjectivity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Dancyger, Ken . The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. Oxford: Routledge, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Daskalaki, Maria , Alexandra Stara, and Miguel Imas. “The ‘Parkour Organisation’: Inhabitation of Corporate Spaces.” Culture and Organization 14, no. 1 (2008): 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759550701659029.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Eugeni, Ruggero . “First Person Shot: New Forms of Subjectivity between Cinema and Intermedia Networks,” 2012, 20. https://doi.org/10.7238/a.v0iM.1499.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Friedberg, Anne . The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Fuggle, Sophie . “Le Parkour: Reading or Writing the City?” In Rhythms: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture, edited by Elizabeth Lindley and Laura McMahon , Modern French Identities, vol. 68, 159–70. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: Essays On Algorithmic Culture, Electronic Mediations, vol. 18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Grayson, Kyle , and Jocelyn Mawdsley . “Scopic Regimes and the Visual Turn in International Relations: Seeing World Politics through the Drone.” European Journal of International Relations 25, no. 2 (2019): 431–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066118781955.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Greenwalt, Dustin A. “User-Generated Videos of Urban Exploration and the Production of Affective Space.” Explorations in Media Ecology 14, no. 1–2 (2015): 125–39. https://doi.org/10.1386/eme.14.1-2.125_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Kidder, Jeffrey L. “Parkour, the Affective Appropriation of Urban Space, and the Real/Virtual Dialectic.” City & Community 11, no. 3 (2012): 229–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2012.01406.x.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. King, Homay , and Shari Frilot . “Virtual Reality in Real Time: A Conversation.” Film Quarterly 71, no. 1 (2017): 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2017.71.1.51
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Lamb, Matthew . “Miseuse of the Monument: The Art of Parkour and the Discursive Limits of a Disciplinary Architecture.” Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 107–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Lamb, Matthew . “Self and the City: Parkour, Architecture, and the Interstices of the ‘Knowable’ City.” Liminalities 10, no. 2 (2014): 1–20.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Lindner, Christoph , ed. Urban Space and Cityscapes: Perspectives from Modern and Contemporary Culture. London: Routledge, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Loo, Wen Bin , and Tim Bunnell . “Landscaping Selves through Parkour: Reinterpreting the Urban Environment of Singapore.” Space and Culture 21, no. 2, 145–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331217720073.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Lynch, Kevin . The Image of the City: Publications of the Joint Center for Urban Studies. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Marshall, Bill . “Running across the Rooves of Empire: Parkour and the Postcolonial City.” Modern & Contemporary France 18, no. 2 (May 1, 2010): 157–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639481003714872.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Mennel, Barbara Caroline . Cities and Cinema, Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Mould, Oli . “Parkour, the City, the Event.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, no. 4 (2009): 738–50. https://doi.org/10.1068/d11108.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Ortuzar, Jimena . “Parkour or ‘l'art Du Déplacement’: A Kinetic Urban Utopia.” TDR (1988–) 53, no. 3 (2009): 54–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Penz, François , and Andong Lu . Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image. Bristol: Intellect, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Penz, François , and Richard Koeck , eds. Cinematic Urban Geographies, 1st ed., 2017 edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.221
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Rancière, Jacques , and Slavoj Žižek . The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. New York: Continuum, 2004.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Saville, Stephen John . “Playing with Fear: Parkour and the Mobility of Emotion.” Social & Cultural Geography 9, no. 8 (2008): 891–914. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360802441440.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Storm Freerun. “Pushing Mental Barriers,” May 13, 2021, vlog, 02:04–03:20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25jiNchBX6w. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  33. STORROR. “Incredible Parkour spots! STORROR clothing SS21gb” May 31, 2021, vlog, 17:30–17:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi_dUPn843Y. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  34. Sobchack, Vivian . The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691213279.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Tidy, Joanna . “Visual Regimes and the Politics of War Experience: Rewriting War ‘From Above’ in WikiLeaks’ ‘Collateral Murder’.” Review of International Studies 43, no. 1 (2017): 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210516000164.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Uricchio, William . “Imag(in)ing the City: Simondes to the Sims.” In Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis. London: Wallflower Press, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Uricchio, William . “VR Is Not Film: So What Is It? By William Uricchio.” Medium, September 21, 2017. https://immerse.news/vr-is-not-film-so-what-is-it-36d58e59c030. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  38. Warner, Jr . Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions, 1st edition. New Brunswick, NJ: Routledge, 2001.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Webber, Andrew , and Emma Wilson , eds. Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis, Illustrated edition. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Zimmerman, Patricia , and Caren Kaplan . “Coronavirus Drone Genres: Spectacles of Distance and Melancholia.” Film Quarterly (April 30, 2020). https://filmquarterly.org/2020/04/30/coronavirus-drone-genres-spectacles-of-distance-and-melancholia/. Last accessed October 19, 2023.223
     [Google Scholar]

References

  1. Atkinson, Michael . “Heidegger, Parkour, Post-Sport, and the Essence of Being.” In A Companion to Sport, edited by David L. Andrews and Ben Carrington , Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies 15. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013 .
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Branigan, Edward . Point of View in the Cinema: A Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film, Reprint 2010, Approaches to Semiotics 66. Berlin: Mouton, 1984. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110817591.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bolter, David J , and Richard A. Grusin . “Remediation.” Configurations (Baltimore, MD) 4, no. 3 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1353/con.1996.0018.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Brunner, Christoph . “Nice-Looking Obstacles: Parkour as Urban Practice of Deterritorialization.” AI & SOCIETY 26, no. 2 (2011): 143–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-010-0294-2.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bruno, Giuliana . Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso, 2002.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Chamayou, Grégoire . A Theory of the Drone. New York: The New Press, 2015.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Chandler, Katherine Fehr . “A Drone Manifesto: Re-Forming the Partial Politics of Targeted Killing.” Catalyst (San Diego, CA) 2, no. 1 (2016): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v2i1.28832.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Chateau, Dominique . Subjectivity: Filmic Representation and the Spectator's Experience, Key Debates in Subjectivity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Dancyger, Ken . The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice. Oxford: Routledge, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Daskalaki, Maria , Alexandra Stara, and Miguel Imas. “The ‘Parkour Organisation’: Inhabitation of Corporate Spaces.” Culture and Organization 14, no. 1 (2008): 49–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759550701659029.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Eugeni, Ruggero . “First Person Shot: New Forms of Subjectivity between Cinema and Intermedia Networks,” 2012, 20. https://doi.org/10.7238/a.v0iM.1499.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Friedberg, Anne . The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Fuggle, Sophie . “Le Parkour: Reading or Writing the City?” In Rhythms: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture, edited by Elizabeth Lindley and Laura McMahon , Modern French Identities, vol. 68, 159–70. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: Essays On Algorithmic Culture, Electronic Mediations, vol. 18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Grayson, Kyle , and Jocelyn Mawdsley . “Scopic Regimes and the Visual Turn in International Relations: Seeing World Politics through the Drone.” European Journal of International Relations 25, no. 2 (2019): 431–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066118781955.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Greenwalt, Dustin A. “User-Generated Videos of Urban Exploration and the Production of Affective Space.” Explorations in Media Ecology 14, no. 1–2 (2015): 125–39. https://doi.org/10.1386/eme.14.1-2.125_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Kidder, Jeffrey L. “Parkour, the Affective Appropriation of Urban Space, and the Real/Virtual Dialectic.” City & Community 11, no. 3 (2012): 229–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2012.01406.x.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. King, Homay , and Shari Frilot . “Virtual Reality in Real Time: A Conversation.” Film Quarterly 71, no. 1 (2017): 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2017.71.1.51
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Lamb, Matthew . “Miseuse of the Monument: The Art of Parkour and the Discursive Limits of a Disciplinary Architecture.” Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 107–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Lamb, Matthew . “Self and the City: Parkour, Architecture, and the Interstices of the ‘Knowable’ City.” Liminalities 10, no. 2 (2014): 1–20.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Lindner, Christoph , ed. Urban Space and Cityscapes: Perspectives from Modern and Contemporary Culture. London: Routledge, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Loo, Wen Bin , and Tim Bunnell . “Landscaping Selves through Parkour: Reinterpreting the Urban Environment of Singapore.” Space and Culture 21, no. 2, 145–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331217720073.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Lynch, Kevin . The Image of the City: Publications of the Joint Center for Urban Studies. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Marshall, Bill . “Running across the Rooves of Empire: Parkour and the Postcolonial City.” Modern & Contemporary France 18, no. 2 (May 1, 2010): 157–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639481003714872.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Mennel, Barbara Caroline . Cities and Cinema, Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Mould, Oli . “Parkour, the City, the Event.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, no. 4 (2009): 738–50. https://doi.org/10.1068/d11108.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Ortuzar, Jimena . “Parkour or ‘l'art Du Déplacement’: A Kinetic Urban Utopia.” TDR (1988–) 53, no. 3 (2009): 54–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Penz, François , and Andong Lu . Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image. Bristol: Intellect, 2011.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Penz, François , and Richard Koeck , eds. Cinematic Urban Geographies, 1st ed., 2017 edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.221
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Rancière, Jacques , and Slavoj Žižek . The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. New York: Continuum, 2004.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Saville, Stephen John . “Playing with Fear: Parkour and the Mobility of Emotion.” Social & Cultural Geography 9, no. 8 (2008): 891–914. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360802441440.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Storm Freerun. “Pushing Mental Barriers,” May 13, 2021, vlog, 02:04–03:20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25jiNchBX6w. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  33. STORROR. “Incredible Parkour spots! STORROR clothing SS21gb” May 31, 2021, vlog, 17:30–17:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi_dUPn843Y. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  34. Sobchack, Vivian . The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691213279.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Tidy, Joanna . “Visual Regimes and the Politics of War Experience: Rewriting War ‘From Above’ in WikiLeaks’ ‘Collateral Murder’.” Review of International Studies 43, no. 1 (2017): 95–111. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210516000164.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Uricchio, William . “Imag(in)ing the City: Simondes to the Sims.” In Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis. London: Wallflower Press, 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Uricchio, William . “VR Is Not Film: So What Is It? By William Uricchio.” Medium, September 21, 2017. https://immerse.news/vr-is-not-film-so-what-is-it-36d58e59c030. Last accessed October 19 , 2023.
  38. Warner, Jr . Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions, 1st edition. New Brunswick, NJ: Routledge, 2001.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Webber, Andrew , and Emma Wilson , eds. Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis, Illustrated edition. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Zimmerman, Patricia , and Caren Kaplan . “Coronavirus Drone Genres: Spectacles of Distance and Melancholia.” Film Quarterly (April 30, 2020). https://filmquarterly.org/2020/04/30/coronavirus-drone-genres-spectacles-of-distance-and-melancholia/. Last accessed October 19, 2023.223
     [Google Scholar]

  • From This Site

    /content/books/9781835950326.c11
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
/content/books/9781835950326.c11
dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
-contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
10
5
Chapter
content/books/9781835950326
Book
false
en
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test