PhD research in progress
On Wheels: Investigating the 1980s skateboard as a performing object through illustration practice
Joel Lardner talks through his PhD work in progress
Joel Lardner, a Senior Lecturer at the Arts University Bournemouth and a PhD research student at London College of Communication, started his PhD journey in illustration research in 2023. In his work exploring the American 1980s skateboard graphics, he asserts skateboard decks as artefacts embodying a unique relationship with urban space rooted in active embracing of failure and accident. We talked with Joel about his visual experiments and the intricate links between the ideas of Gothic horror, fairgrounds, early cinema, accident, projections, and skateboarding.
Work in progress
Visual experiments in Blender and AR made together with Paul Roberts, and experiments with photocopy machine on a custom deck.
INTERVIEW
— Often the choice of PhD topic is constrained by lots of institutional limitations: from funding priorities and institutionally favoured areas of study to supervisors’ expertise, which often limits or changes the initial intention of the PhD student quite significantly. But your work seems to match your passion – how did you make it work?
— There’s an autoethnographic aspect to my project, which is an approach that gets increasingly recognised in academic work. I’m lucky that the institution where I’m studying (UAL) has a very open approach to what constitutes illustration research. I was also careful to locate supervisors that were sympathetic to my ambitions for my practice and the research, so I think for someone starting out the priority is finding the people that are going to support you with your ambitions. You just need to know what your curiosity is going to deliver in terms of thinking around illustration as a discipline.
As illustration research is still evolving, it requires thinking about the parallel disciplines and taking aspects that can enrich your research direction.
— You have mentioned autoethnographic approach, and methodology and theory are what I wanted to talk about next. Skateboarding is a subject that may not necessarily invite obvious theory choices. How do you go about this in your work?
— The practice led PhDs taking place at UAL are often on the periphery of existing approaches, forcing you to devise a bespoke methodology. As illustration research is still evolving as an area, it requires thinking about the parallel disciplines and taking aspects that can enrich your research direction.
Since this is practice led research journey, I started by looking closely how I might work with the archives of 1980s skateboard paraphernalia. I referred to the history of graphic design and graphic design studies, since, obviously, this is a discipline currently written about more broadly, and since the artefacts that I'm referring to integrate imagery and text, – so that seemed like an obvious decision.
Another area that closely relates to my topic is art history. I looked at artistic techniques and processes, looking for echoes between them. Specifically, I was referring graphics using trompe l’oeil and the aesthetics of grotesque. Such fundamental elements of art history and Renaissance work has informed how I can dissect graphics.
— The practice led PhDs taking place at UAL are often on the periphery of existing approaches, forcing you to devise a bespoke methodology. As illustration research is still evolving as an area, it requires thinking about the parallel disciplines and taking aspects that can enrich your research direction.
Since this is practice led research journey, I started by looking closely how I might work with the archives of 1980s skateboard paraphernalia. I referred to the history of graphic design and graphic design studies, since, obviously, this is a discipline currently written about more broadly, and since the artefacts that I'm referring to integrate imagery and text, – so that seemed like an obvious decision.
Another area that closely relates to my topic is art history. I looked at artistic techniques and processes, looking for echoes between them. Specifically, I was referring graphics using trompe l’oeil and the aesthetics of grotesque. Such fundamental elements of art history and Renaissance work has informed how I can dissect graphics.
— You mentioned the work with the archives a little bit. Since your research is largely dealing with the 1980s, I suppose one of the challenges would be to align the histories of skateboarding with the contemporary moment?
— What I am trying to articulate with my research is that this period the 1980s was a seminal period in the development of skateboard graphics, and a lot of the artifacts of this period are now incredibly valuable. There is a lot of nostalgia around these objects, particularly among the people of my age group. There’s a rich ecosystem of professional practices that exists around these objects already: from the professionals who carefully restore the materials and techniques, starting from the visuals to printing processes, and to the attention from the major institutions, such as the Design Museum in London, the Smithsonian in the US, being interested in skateboard history. Skateboard practice and history is referred to as a kind of a common trope associated with a certain lifestyle decisions, in this sense it has economic value to entities that want to identify with leisure pursuits.
Originally, these objects were advertised and distributed through print media and the collectors, and these objects had a certain talismanic quality to them. A skateboarder would choose a particular brand that they’d like to associate themselves with, so selecting one of these toys back in the day was an important performative choice. I am deliberately using the term ‘toy’ here, because it’s deliberately provocative and causes a reaction, and I am trying to reclaim it as a term, because fundamentally as I dig down into my PhD I think I’m beginning to realise that this imagery is an articulation of the pleasure and the fun that people have skateboarding. It is about stepping beyond the ephemeral object and thinking about what this toy can afford.
Originally, these objects were advertised and distributed through print media and the collectors, and these objects had a certain talismanic quality to them. A skateboarder would choose a particular brand that they’d like to associate themselves with, so selecting one of these toys back in the day was an important performative choice. I am deliberately using the term ‘toy’ here, because it’s deliberately provocative and causes a reaction, and I am trying to reclaim it as a term, because fundamentally as I dig down into my PhD I think I’m beginning to realise that this imagery is an articulation of the pleasure and the fun that people have skateboarding. It is about stepping beyond the ephemeral object and thinking about what this toy can afford.
The skateboarder embraces failure and the accident as an integral part of the experience.
— Lots of visual experiments in your PhD project play around the idea of glitch and distortion – could you talk a bit through your ideas here in more detail?
— Anybody who’s ever stood on skateboard will know the experience: the skateboarder embraces failure and the accident as an integral part of the experience. I think it’s fundamental to why people skate because the thrill you get is directly connected to the possibility of an accident. I’m currently using photocopy machines to distort found imagery and things I’ve drawn. It’s an improvisational approach because this also is in tune with a nature of skateboarding: the way skateboarder looks at the environment and engages with architecture in ways that may be different to how most people think about space. I’m trying to represent that sense of improvisation, those undulations, and the sense of movement.
— Anybody who’s ever stood on skateboard will know the experience: the skateboarder embraces failure and the accident as an integral part of the experience. I think it’s fundamental to why people skate because the thrill you get is directly connected to the possibility of an accident. I’m currently using photocopy machines to distort found imagery and things I’ve drawn. It’s an improvisational approach because this also is in tune with a nature of skateboarding: the way skateboarder looks at the environment and engages with architecture in ways that may be different to how most people think about space. I’m trying to represent that sense of improvisation, those undulations, and the sense of movement.
Having to pull out your phone to experience an artwork, I think, quite awkward, because a skateboarder should really be on a skateboard, not on their phone.
— Mistake and failure in the context of skateboarding would probably primarily be associated with embodied experience, but are you bringing in AR, 3D models, and the aesthetics of glitch. Why is this blend with the digital important for you?
— I began to look at the notion of improvised interference when I was looking at skateboard zines of the 80-s, that used photocopiers to generate the shapes – so this creative approach is embedded already in skateboard culture.
Working with my collaborator Paul Roberts, we are using technology to expand this notion and appeal to skateboarders and aspirants in the 21st-century. I’m lucky to work in a university environment, where speaking to the students engaging with these debates shows how blurred the boundary between the digital and the physical is. I still think there’s no consolidation yet, with the technology allowing less space for accidents to occur.
With a lot of digital trends and technologies rising and falling and skateboarding as a culture being very reliant upon a sense of authenticity, I’m very sensitive to the choice of technologies. I know, for instance, that some projections and experiments that I make could be judged as gimmicks: having to pull out your phone to experience some of these images is, I think, quite awkward, because a skateboarder should really be on a skateboard, not on their phone. I do have to deal with a bit of this contradiction in my practice but I’m trying to be conscious about it and approach it with irony.
— I began to look at the notion of improvised interference when I was looking at skateboard zines of the 80-s, that used photocopiers to generate the shapes – so this creative approach is embedded already in skateboard culture.
Working with my collaborator Paul Roberts, we are using technology to expand this notion and appeal to skateboarders and aspirants in the 21st-century. I’m lucky to work in a university environment, where speaking to the students engaging with these debates shows how blurred the boundary between the digital and the physical is. I still think there’s no consolidation yet, with the technology allowing less space for accidents to occur.
With a lot of digital trends and technologies rising and falling and skateboarding as a culture being very reliant upon a sense of authenticity, I’m very sensitive to the choice of technologies. I know, for instance, that some projections and experiments that I make could be judged as gimmicks: having to pull out your phone to experience some of these images is, I think, quite awkward, because a skateboarder should really be on a skateboard, not on their phone. I do have to deal with a bit of this contradiction in my practice but I’m trying to be conscious about it and approach it with irony.
— You mentioned being judged, and I suppose this idea of hierarchy and taste, being or not being a part of the community is very important for skateboarding culture. How do you reflect on these things in your process?
— In my work I try to embrace the grotesque, vulgar, and the ephemeral nature of the skateboard graphics which are frequently scratched away as skateboarders ride the concrete architecture. I’m interested in the relationship of skateboarding to the vernacular of fun, particularly the phenomena of fairground and the sideshow, with their performative nature of the imagery behind them. This ties in well to the notion of the skateboard as a performance tool.
— The idea of a fairground also echoes the notion of failure, I suppose, in how a fairground occupies a marginalised space of performance within an urban space. Skateboarding graphics probably also represents this somewhat transgressive position of its performing practice in the wider urban environment?
— Yes, Camille Ayme has spoken about how the skateboard as an object carries the city as it manifests itself on the skateboard and the body of the skateboarder when they fall. Such accidents are embedded within the skateboard graphics, but also in the skateboarders’ bodies. This is most famously presented in the iconic screaming hand image by Jim Phillips.
— Speaking about metaphors, how are you using them in your work?
— To me it is probably the most important tool for conceptual illustration. This is what I have used in my own commercial practice a lot, so I naturally applied it to this research. I started thinking about the Gothic image, the historical practice of using projections in drawing, about the projections as precursors of cinematic image, and these ideas turned into these phantasmagorical projections in my work. This tied in with the idea of a fairground, with its technologies used to dazzle and impress an audience. Similarly to an early cinematic projection, Gothic and ghostly, a skateboard with its Gothic macabre symbolism is suspended in the air, and I find it interesting that the actual mechanics of this process relies upon four wheels in both cases.
I tried to use these ideas in my keynote presentation at CONFIA 2024 conference, when this almost phantasmagorical projection was ridden on stage. Through making these connections, I tried to articulate the distinct attributes of skateboarding culture.
I tried to use these ideas in my keynote presentation at CONFIA 2024 conference, when this almost phantasmagorical projection was ridden on stage. Through making these connections, I tried to articulate the distinct attributes of skateboarding culture.
A projector displaying an image of the grim reaper to a theater audience. Engraving titled _Fantasmagorie_ by A. Ganot, from Cours de physique, 1859. fig.223. p.384
I tried to use these ideas in my keynote presentation at CONFIA 2024 conference, when this almost phantasmagorical projection was ridden on stage. Through making these connections, I tried to articulate the distinct attributes of skateboarding culture.
Joel Lardner's Instagram: @joellardner