Tuesday, November 29, 2022 at 7:30pm
skate video parts worth watching
361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
Presented by Charles Broskoski
The idea of Charles Broskoski walking a Light Industry audience through an Are.na channel of skate videos appealed to us for a number of reasons. The skate video itself is a prodigious genre, a form with its own distinctive codes and conventions which we've long wanted to survey (and whose history has dovetailed with that of underground and independent film more generally). Of equal interest was how these particular videos were circulating, on a site that offered the most successful alternative to the algo-driven social media of the day. While users on Twitter frequently allude to the platform as, say, "this hellsite," referring to a digital landscape blighted by advertisement, misinformation, and an insufferable discourse, the operative metaphor preferred by many on Are.na, which Broskoski co-founded, is the library—a communal space where one can pursue one's research unbothered, and frequently alight upon some new, unexpected object of fascination.
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"'skate video parts worth watching' is a selection of skateboard video parts which are pulled from an Are.na channel with the same name. The title is kind of a joke, riffing on a style of Are.na channel naming ('Interviews worth reading,' 'Anime worth watching'). The joke is about taking an overly authoritative and snobby approach toward recommendations.
When I was growing up, the move was to watch videos over and over and over and over. Before skateboarding, after skateboarding, in the morning, really any time. When I try to think about what we wanted to glean from watching skate videos as teens, it's hard to pinpoint. At first, you're amazed at technical ability, but the more you get into it the more you realize that 'style' is what's important. Style is in quotations because in skateboarding parlance, this concept encompasses more than what it sounds like.
Style in skateboarding is the sum total of a person's approach to skateboarding: the trick selection, how they do them, what type of spots they skate, how they dress, what music they listen to, and to some extent what they are like as a person. In the most extreme cases, a person's 'style' encompasses their entire being. There are skateboarders who only do what are objectively 'simple' tricks, but their style is so impressive that they sit comfortably among the most revered skaters.
Skateboard video parts, when successful, are the distillation of a particular skateboarder's style, expressed through a documentation of tricks, edited and set to music.
Skateboarding is in the Olympics but it’s hard to really call it a sport. In what other sport can a person's lifestyle have just as much of an effect on the spectator as a feat of athleticism?
My goal for this program is to share what are (arguably) the most canonical skateboard video parts to a non-skate audience and try to explain further what constitutes 'worth watching,' all while not embarrassing myself in front of any skaters present."
- CB
Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.
Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm.