Thursday 15 November 2012

OUGD501 // Lecture 5 // Subculture & Style

Subculture is separate from style, you can have the style without the subculture.

What lecture will cover:
-skateboarding
- parkour
- free running
-graffiti

The riot girl movement as a feminine and feminist subculture
the portrayal of youth subculture in film and photography.

original photography of the time. history of skateboarding and surf culture. shows culture from 1970s into the subcultural arena of sport and competitive. 
Empty swimming pool as skate ramp, re use of unwanted things/building to create a skateboard park. 

not all male skateboarders. clothing was chosen for practical use. no differentiation between male and female - not feminist.

useful because it looks at urban street skating as a political statement. street skating gives the body something to do. idea that skating is a way of outside the experience of just walking around and looking at things in the city. resisting the city. using handrail as skateboard ramp to grind instead of its original use.

important that social interaction is shown throughout the film

Freerunning and Parkour

Parkour
A method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping. Parkour practitioners are known as traceurs. They train to be able to identify and utilize alternate or the more efficient paths through the city.
sporting element to it.

Freerunning
A form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures
Places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity than efficiency.

demonstrating skill of the subculture. creates a group of super hero, fighting in the ghetto.
steal from the rich to fund the poor.

documentary from 2003. the traces navigate buildings within cities. challenge the architecture within the city

claiming ownership within a public space. passive or static space. experience of the city at night makes it subcultural. 

Black graffiti writer Prime says:
I mean I’ve met people that I would never have met, people like skinheads who are blatantly racist or whatever. I can see it in them and they know we know, but when you’re dealing on a graffiti level, everything’s cool and I go yard with them, they’d come round my house , I’d give them dinner or something.


female graffiti writers are judged on there looks. overly sexualised cartoon figure - focus on appearance - putting femininity in peoples faces. 


pyramid made up of building - sat on top of the city. Urban regeneration, people claiming back space.

Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber:
Girl subcultures may have become more invisible  because the very term ‘subculture’ has acquired such strong masculine overtones (1977)







the idea of status within a subculture results in factions that separate from the original culture - mod to skinheads. the originals and the unimaginably following the trend and change it.

Mod girl was working class - hippy girl is middle class - university education. Space for leisure that allows to find yourself - females have more access to this. time for personal expression.

flower powere girl
rock and roll hippy - destruction.

underground punk movement. wouldnt call themselves feminist - third way feminism. alot of issues were serious issues - domestic abuse etc. 

more about the protest and message not about the music. DIY method - anti authority. 


not about the music its aout the attitude and assertion of the female figure within the music industry. Late 70s early 80s punk rockers.

Pioneer of the alternative scene - poly styrene

riot girls involved in political reactive situations. fan zines which based around the activity of these issues.
Punk DIY aesthetic - not highly produced, but about the message and the issues within the zine. Issues which effect females the most.

political in some way - historical influence - gives women a voice within music industry

hard to think about women being side lined in music industry - back then it was revolutionary what they were doing.

a distortion of riot girl movement. style but without the subculture and politics.

band styling which represents visual types and cliches which are there for easy consumption of the target audience. Girl power which actually has no real effect in real life. Scary spice, posh spice. Reduces any understanding of power to just a comment on style. lyrics have no real meaning - no power behind it.

not the actual music itself but the message it gives. distortion of the punk movement in the media. 
offence brought from the culture. look at the subcultures seperatly from the media and how it is exploited through that.

everything is turned into mass produced products from the subcultures. what the subcultures were doing within the styling and clothing was taken into mass production and became style for the whole generations.

the punk subculture non threatening - shows them as nice people - represented in the media as something that they aren't.

Transforming objects in a rebellious status.

youth groups and items of clothing following London riots - hoody is a demonised item for riot. linking clothing into behaviour. it is a practical thing in the first instance but changes to something else when worn within a cultural group. hiding you from view



meaning of the clothing changes as its context is changed. starts as a high class item, which is then taken into mass production for anyone to wear, but the design and how worn is changed along its way.

girls were a small part of the teddy boy culture. 



development of skin head culture. 

interesting documentary of the culture. 

taking to the transformation into a skinhead through the group that he falls into. this changes his style etc to fit in with the sjin head group. journey from being young man to a teenager. 

shows the fractions of the skin head culture. shows the definition clearly. media had a different view of this and portrays it in a different way. Combo fosters the political idea of politics within the group which splits them, again showing how they can be different within the skin head culture.


violence is triggered by combination of different view within the culture and how others can take on a different aspect of the same thing.
Working class conflict in a subculture which is influenced by integration. 

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