Parkour & Derive

‘Parkour’ is a new name for what is, essentially, a practice as old as humankind: utilising the ability to employ ‘an astounding range of motion and range of options for how to move through a given set of obstacles’ (Toorock, 2005). However, in the recent incarnation that is Parkour, we have a distinctly urban phenomenon in which the practitioner ‘seeks to run in a straight

line

through

a

given

environment

(a

city

or

neighbourhood, for instance) and find a way over every single element in their path, including climbing buildings when necessary’ (A-infos, 2005). As such it has been linked, in what little literature is available, with an attempt to ‘remap’ the city and ‘escape from the forces of striation and repression’ (Geyh, 2005) associated with the construction of contemporary urban space (Daskalaki, Stara & Imas, 2007). The ‘resistance’ inherent in Parkour has been linked with ‘the Situationist traditions in exploring modern architechture as oppressive to the individual and societal consciousness’ (A-infos, 2005). One such tradition, the dérive, was defined by Guy Debord, the most well known of the 1950’s Situationist Internationale (SI) group, as a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances [in which] one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work, their leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there (Debord, 1958) Whilst Parkour is largely practised as a sport-cum-art form, very much

concerned

with

physical

movement

and

fluid

engagement with the environment (Geyh, 2005), the dérive is

intended as a psychogeographical research technique which reveals and maps ‘the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals’ (Debord, 1955, cited by Banks, no date) and, as such, represents a more cerebral approach. Yet both could be said to ‘cultivate an awareness of the ways in which everyday life is presently conditioned and controlled [and] the ways in which this can be exposed and subverted’ (Plant, 1992). It is this common theme which I will explore in this piece, to argue that both of these practices represent

different

ends

of

the

spectrum

of

psychogeographical, urban resistance.

Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle ([1967] 1994) outlined the Situationist’s theory of society dominated and controlled by the ‘spectacle’ which he defines as ‘not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images’ (1994:12), and ‘argued that capitalism had turned all relationships transactional, and that life had been reduced to a spectacle’ (Marshall, 1992). In many ways simply a re-working of Marx’s view of alienation, what the Situationists added was ‘the recognition that in order to ensure continued economic growth, capitalism has created ‘pseudoneeds’ to increase consumption’ (Marshall, 1992).

These notions, of a global society premised on consumption and spectacle, whilst new and somewhat avant-garde in 1967,

are widely propounded in many quarters today (Pinder, 2004:109) and tie in closely with Daskalaki et al’s (2008) notion of the ‘corporatisation of the city’ where ‘commodification within capitalist cultural contexts has reinforced separation, fragmentation

and

atomisation.

Open

spaces

promote

corporate images that reduce the public to mere consumers’ (2008:53). What we have, then, in (post)modern cities is a sense of ‘non-place’ achieved through ‘the privatisation of what was once perceived as public space’ (2008:53) within a landscape of ‘highly prescriptive (albeit often covertly so) spatial structures, that exemplify restricting socio-political structures

of

homogenisation,

control

and

domination’

(2008:52). Thus, just as, in the Situationists writings, ‘urban planning is presented as the enemy of the city as a realm of possibility

and

emancipation’

(Pinder,

2004:112),

so

do

Daskalaki et al (2008:53) state that ‘the forces of capitalism have converted places that could encourage difference and interaction to non-places of homogenisation and indifference’.

For the Situationists, ‘the city was seen as the spatial form of capitalism at its most complete – but also, conversely, the city provided the people and resources needed for radical social change’ (Banks, no date). Debord’s Theory of the Dérive (1958) was intended to ‘provoke us to see space differently’ (Banks, no date), ‘to seek out reasons for movement other than those for which an environment was designed’ (Plant, 1992) and thus to ‘enable a revolutionary reappropriation of landscape’ (Bonner, 1989, cited by Banks, no date).

Parkour, whilst somewhat different in its method, fits this bill perfectly. Developed in the Parisian Banlieus (suburbs) by childhood friends David Belle and Sébastien Foucan, Parkour may be seen as a response to what Daskalaki et al (2008:55) describe as being Among the most alienating and dehumanising urban clusters in the world … a ruthless simplification of the Corbusian Ville Contemporaine, with a grid of identical high-rises towering over sprawls of land in between; spaces with token gestures of landscaping … which cannot mitigate the greater socio-political, as well as architectural, failure of the development to create any sense of public life. The practice of Parkour involves leaps, jumps and vaults to overcome the obstacles ‘that are intended to limit movement (walls, curbs, railings, fences) or that unintentionally hamper passage (lampposts, street signs, benches) through the space’ (Geyh, 2006), and to do this as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Thus Parkour becomes almost an art form, but one which

‘demonstrates

a

resistance

to

[urban

space’s]

disciplinary functions, particularly as manifest in the urban street grid’ (Geyh, 2006). Parkour, as Daskalaki et al (2008:56) argue,

provides

‘a

sense

of

freedom

from

pre-defined

perceptual routes and regimented experiences … spaces acquire a new use, become a liberating rather than restricting element in human experience’. They cite the words of one practitioner of Parkour: Society looks down on what we do as a bad thing, but they built up this concrete jungle around us. Concrete, roofs,

whatever. And we’re told we can only walk in a certain way, we can only move in a certain way. Mankind has struggled for centuries to be free. The pursuit of Parkour for us is a pursuit of freedom. The first big high I got from Parkour was when I was sitting on a rooftop in central London. A pigeon sat with us. We were where the birds were and I suddenly felt free (2008:56). I feel certain that Debord would applaud such sentiments, fitting as they are to the Situationist’s project of ‘bringing private desires into the public realm, giving the emotional and affectual a place in the urban environment’ (Shields, 1996:244). Yet I would like to go further in my comparison, lifting it from the theoretical to the practical, to suggest that we can all partake in these ‘socially symbolic act[s], a form of resistance to cityscapes that alienate, restrict and subjugate’ (Daskalaki et al, 2008:57), through the practice of dérive.

It has been suggested that anyone can become involved in Parkour, that ‘anyone can immediately begin practicing it on a zero budget simply by running outside and beginning to interact with their environment’ (A-infos, 2005). Whilst I would not dispute this per se, I would argue that Parkour requires a level of fitness and expertise which necessitates a substantial commitment of time and energy. To dérive, on the other hand, simply requires a willingness to let go of pre-conceived ideas and to remain open to new experiences and emotional responses (Debord, 1958). So, whilst a dérive can simply be a walk or cycle ride through a known or unknown place, other suggested dérives include: exploring a city by blindly following

a map of a different city (Debord & Wolman, cited by Plant, 1992); the algorithmic dérive (Banks, no date) which involves a series of instructions – eg: first left, second right, third left – which are repeated for the duration; the ‘possible rendezvous’ (Debord, 1958) in which an individual goes to a pre-arranged spot which may be known or unknown and where s/he may or may not rendezvous with another individual. The point, in any case, is to ‘highlight the emotive aspects of the city, where places are commonly characterised not just by physical data but by their powers of ‘attraction’: who hangs out where and when shapes the identity of sites and spaces’ (Shields, 1996:245).

In conclusion then, I have highlighted the ways in which Parkour, as a highly physical activity, and the dérive, as a more cerebral activity, occupy different ends of a spectrum of urban resistance. This resistance, to the restricting and homogenizing effect of (post)modern, ‘corporatised’ cities, represents an attempt to re-map and reclaim the city from the debilitating structures of urban planning, both in the physical and emotion/psychogeographical sense. Whilst Parkour requires commitment and dedication to achieve the necessary fitness and expertise, the dérive offers an opportunity for anyone to explore the psychgeographical nature of cities and to resist the ever-encroaching corporatisation of public space.