Who Owns the Clip? - Part 2
by Richard Mungall
November 17th, 2019
Editor's Note: Please see Part 1 to hear the rest of this discussion.
November 17th, 2019
Editor's Note: Please see Part 1 to hear the rest of this discussion.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.’” - Jim Jarmusch
In a world of digital media it is now free to endlessly reproduce anything. At the same time, in the money economy we are forced to compete with one another for artificially scarce resources. Ownership of the clip can ensure a pathway to profit through the right to build a brand around it, whether the brand is one’s self on social media or an actual business. “Who owns the clip?” is really asking, “How can we make rules and laws to ensure profit, and thus material survival, in capitalism?” We all experience this survival anxiety in some way.
In contrast, we all know that most riding, most of the time, is not done for the explicit goal of making money. Even among the few that get real paychecks for a short period of their total lifespans, my guess would be that money is still not their primary motivation. Most of our cultural activity is not about economic survival but isvoluntary. Therefore our masters need not be limited to copyright infringement laws written by large media corporations to ensure growing profits. We are an experimental culture free to answer the question “Who owns the clip?” through a much wider lens, crafting different frameworks rooted in our humanity, history, beauty and soul.
If we are to really understand ownership we have to see the big picture. We do tricks that are based on a long evolution, gifted through the contribution of thousands of riders that came before. We are all recipients of broader trends, like the kinds of riding and styles that have developed. In tandem, the technical aspects of our bikes have evolved--designed and manufactured by other people who are often in other countries. That street spot I’m riding is usually one someone else has already found and ridden, likely many times before, and our favorite spots are the unintentional contributions of architects around the world. A similar line of thinking can be applied to skateparks and dirt. And we could go back further to innovations in steel production, the scientific revolution, the invention of the city, the evolution of human bipedalism and opposable digits, or all the way back to the Big Bang. Seriously, we inherited everything! The tricks we do are not some totally original solo performance but more like one essential note in a vast cultural orchestra.
Let’s make this practical. An uprail to truck driver is based on people figuring out first how to go down handrails and only later to go up them; on the evolution of the bunnyhop, the 180 and then the 360; on the barspin, and then on combining them, which originally happened on a box jump, not on street. The fact that you can blast up that rail at all is because bikes have evolved over several decades. In the early days you would have blown off your pegs with 3/8 inch axles with that kind of pressure, if you could even bunnyhop that high on 35 pounds of awkwardly shaped chromoly with handlebars so low you were constantly straining your back. And it’s unlikely that riding would have evolved without skateboarding (and before, surfing), or at least it would look very different, because half the tricks you are doing up that rail are named after similar tricks on a skateboard. Just don’t tell Steve Caballero that. He hates creative combinations.
When we look at the creative process as it actually is we can see the absurdity of claiming definitive ownership over one trick when it would never have been possible without all that came before. This understanding and approach to art making is not new, with people like Guy Debord making films that were entirely plagiarized from other popular films. He rightly recognized that creativity isn’t about creating something from scratch, but about what he called détournement, the endless combinations of already existing material.
SO. If you are the first person on a spot to truck out of an uprail, then yes, you added something new. And in a certain sense you should be honored for that addition to the world. Ya! More beauty. That’s worth a big cheer from the crowd, every time. Whatever trick you are doing right now is the biggest possible contribution you can personally make, the quintessence of progression - and, at the same time, it is just a small addition in the whole symphony. It’s 99.99999% plagiarism. And that’s ok. Because that is how creativity works.
This extends well beyond the tricks that we do. The act of riding itself is pure appropriation, especially street. I grew up in a shithole rust belt city and the only tool I had was the bike, the only real culture my friends, and we went out into the world and made something beautiful from the endless soul sucking strip malls, industrial landscapes and suburbs. Hardee’s became my favorite bank to ride, Pick N’ Save my first wallride, Kmart my first feeble grind, and Spring Mall the perfect two stair manual. Your story probably isn’t much different. Trespassing laws were invented to prevent this original form of plagiarism: existing within and using spaces against their intended purposes. “Private property!”
At this point the post-modernist would stop and say, see, we can’t make a claim to own anything, while the capitalist would stay in that narrow world of copyright laws and media contracts. My view is that there is a third option which doesn’t get mired in economics, technical achievements, or the “death of the author,” but instead goes inward. That other compass point can be called soul and operates at both the cultural and individual levels.
While it is satisfying to add something genuinely new to the corpus of BMX trickery, and while I am proud of the small contributions I believe I’ve made, in my own experience the much deeper satisfaction comes from the felt recognition that I’m participating in something larger. Our collective achievement was building a more beautiful world than anything that was on offer, together, one experience at a time. We resurrected soul in the streets of consumer America! FREESTYLE. I believe this is one of the most radical cultural shifts in the last century, but it’s true import has yet to be recognized, even by bike riders. I personally take so much more pride in this than any specific trick I’ve ever done. Every time we ride we embody the soul of freestyle and can proudly claim ownership through our participation.
There’s also an essential individual component. The question of originality is, as Jarmusch states so beautifully, the question of authentic appropriation. The paradigm shift is to understand that we are not here merely for technical novelty but for soul expression. Bike riding is the arena for us to work out who we really are and how we want to be in the world. We call this “style.” Whether a paintbrush, keyboard or a bicycle, we use the tools at hand to find resonant expressions of what lies within us. This is what we can and should take ownership of with fierce pride. While technical progression naturally grows from here it is more deeply about that visceral expression that comes through our riding. It’s that feeling you get when you know you are witnessing or creating something beautiful, something that just feels right. You can’t describe soul with words but you know it when you see it.
Who owns the clip? The answer to this question lies in what reality you want to live within and co-create. For what it’s worth, here’s my perspective: Soul owns the clip. You don’t get to own the trick, the existence of your bike, or the entire history of the universe since the Big Bang--but you do get to claim full ownership of your soulful expressions and the culture you’ve helped to create. Just like in music, you didn’t invent the instrument or the notes, but through it you nonetheless get to show who you are in a way that is as essential as eating food, but when done well is the nourishment that I believe we ultimately live for.
This perspective is not mutually exclusive to profit. It seems to me that as long as a real bike rider or bike company owns the clip--in other words, as long as corporate America doesn’t own the clip--then more often than not, riders are primarily motivated by an integrity to our culture. Cultural elders recognize a responsibility to pay forward the life of freestyle that has been gifted to them. Fortunately, it’s often true that the better the video, the better for our culture and their brand. So, finally, perhaps the real question is which value systemowns the clip? Even when money is involved, what are our primary motivations when we film or edit? When non-BMX interests step into the mix (energy drinks, the olympics, etc.) that part of our culture is no longer ours, even if we are only willing to admit the wackness that creeps in through meme accounts on Instagram. The real meaning of “selling out” isn’t about money but about soul. I’d love to live in a world where people get paid to do beautiful things so they no longer are forced to do ugly things. Luckily, in a voluntary culture, we almost always have choice here.
So now I think I’ve written enough to answer Mike’s very practical question about the former rider of his brand. I think that clip should be given to whoever will put it to best artistic use. A pure economic/legal lens would miss the bigger picture. The monetary loss for Mike’s brand will be inconsequential, while that small sacrifice of giving it away--that gift--will produce intangible rewards that cannot be measured on a balance sheet. That gift would serve the expression of the rider and the soul of our culture while building relationships with all involved. And it would feel good. So let’s allow clips to be first and foremost monuments to the rider and our culture. There may be other times when genuine economic necessity trumps soul concerns, but fortunately in BMX I think that’s a rarity.
If you take anything away from this article, I hope it is a little bit more appreciation for all the gifts you’ve been given to make this miracle of bike riding possible in your life. I find living from this place to be the most personally satisfying way I’ve found. I don’t write this with some utopian aspirations but rather to point out these essential threads that have always been at the heart of freestyle, though they can be hidden because soul cannot be measured, compared, or directly turned into popularity or profit. To access this level of satisfaction we do have to sacrifice something, like the aspiration to have the attention of the masses that can never actually understand us, or our addictions to those momentary experiences of social media fame. Life is complicated and there is no pure form of anything but I firmly believe that our culture becomes richer to the extent that we place soul as our primary compass point--and further, that soul is the only source for the kind of culture we most deeply want. Without this orientation I don’t think we have the right to call it freestyle. “Who owns the clip?” evokes deep questions about what kind of people we want to become and what kind of culture we want to build together, and it’s worth asking with every clip or edit we make.
In a world of digital media it is now free to endlessly reproduce anything. At the same time, in the money economy we are forced to compete with one another for artificially scarce resources. Ownership of the clip can ensure a pathway to profit through the right to build a brand around it, whether the brand is one’s self on social media or an actual business. “Who owns the clip?” is really asking, “How can we make rules and laws to ensure profit, and thus material survival, in capitalism?” We all experience this survival anxiety in some way.
In contrast, we all know that most riding, most of the time, is not done for the explicit goal of making money. Even among the few that get real paychecks for a short period of their total lifespans, my guess would be that money is still not their primary motivation. Most of our cultural activity is not about economic survival but isvoluntary. Therefore our masters need not be limited to copyright infringement laws written by large media corporations to ensure growing profits. We are an experimental culture free to answer the question “Who owns the clip?” through a much wider lens, crafting different frameworks rooted in our humanity, history, beauty and soul.
If we are to really understand ownership we have to see the big picture. We do tricks that are based on a long evolution, gifted through the contribution of thousands of riders that came before. We are all recipients of broader trends, like the kinds of riding and styles that have developed. In tandem, the technical aspects of our bikes have evolved--designed and manufactured by other people who are often in other countries. That street spot I’m riding is usually one someone else has already found and ridden, likely many times before, and our favorite spots are the unintentional contributions of architects around the world. A similar line of thinking can be applied to skateparks and dirt. And we could go back further to innovations in steel production, the scientific revolution, the invention of the city, the evolution of human bipedalism and opposable digits, or all the way back to the Big Bang. Seriously, we inherited everything! The tricks we do are not some totally original solo performance but more like one essential note in a vast cultural orchestra.
Let’s make this practical. An uprail to truck driver is based on people figuring out first how to go down handrails and only later to go up them; on the evolution of the bunnyhop, the 180 and then the 360; on the barspin, and then on combining them, which originally happened on a box jump, not on street. The fact that you can blast up that rail at all is because bikes have evolved over several decades. In the early days you would have blown off your pegs with 3/8 inch axles with that kind of pressure, if you could even bunnyhop that high on 35 pounds of awkwardly shaped chromoly with handlebars so low you were constantly straining your back. And it’s unlikely that riding would have evolved without skateboarding (and before, surfing), or at least it would look very different, because half the tricks you are doing up that rail are named after similar tricks on a skateboard. Just don’t tell Steve Caballero that. He hates creative combinations.
When we look at the creative process as it actually is we can see the absurdity of claiming definitive ownership over one trick when it would never have been possible without all that came before. This understanding and approach to art making is not new, with people like Guy Debord making films that were entirely plagiarized from other popular films. He rightly recognized that creativity isn’t about creating something from scratch, but about what he called détournement, the endless combinations of already existing material.
SO. If you are the first person on a spot to truck out of an uprail, then yes, you added something new. And in a certain sense you should be honored for that addition to the world. Ya! More beauty. That’s worth a big cheer from the crowd, every time. Whatever trick you are doing right now is the biggest possible contribution you can personally make, the quintessence of progression - and, at the same time, it is just a small addition in the whole symphony. It’s 99.99999% plagiarism. And that’s ok. Because that is how creativity works.
This extends well beyond the tricks that we do. The act of riding itself is pure appropriation, especially street. I grew up in a shithole rust belt city and the only tool I had was the bike, the only real culture my friends, and we went out into the world and made something beautiful from the endless soul sucking strip malls, industrial landscapes and suburbs. Hardee’s became my favorite bank to ride, Pick N’ Save my first wallride, Kmart my first feeble grind, and Spring Mall the perfect two stair manual. Your story probably isn’t much different. Trespassing laws were invented to prevent this original form of plagiarism: existing within and using spaces against their intended purposes. “Private property!”
At this point the post-modernist would stop and say, see, we can’t make a claim to own anything, while the capitalist would stay in that narrow world of copyright laws and media contracts. My view is that there is a third option which doesn’t get mired in economics, technical achievements, or the “death of the author,” but instead goes inward. That other compass point can be called soul and operates at both the cultural and individual levels.
While it is satisfying to add something genuinely new to the corpus of BMX trickery, and while I am proud of the small contributions I believe I’ve made, in my own experience the much deeper satisfaction comes from the felt recognition that I’m participating in something larger. Our collective achievement was building a more beautiful world than anything that was on offer, together, one experience at a time. We resurrected soul in the streets of consumer America! FREESTYLE. I believe this is one of the most radical cultural shifts in the last century, but it’s true import has yet to be recognized, even by bike riders. I personally take so much more pride in this than any specific trick I’ve ever done. Every time we ride we embody the soul of freestyle and can proudly claim ownership through our participation.
There’s also an essential individual component. The question of originality is, as Jarmusch states so beautifully, the question of authentic appropriation. The paradigm shift is to understand that we are not here merely for technical novelty but for soul expression. Bike riding is the arena for us to work out who we really are and how we want to be in the world. We call this “style.” Whether a paintbrush, keyboard or a bicycle, we use the tools at hand to find resonant expressions of what lies within us. This is what we can and should take ownership of with fierce pride. While technical progression naturally grows from here it is more deeply about that visceral expression that comes through our riding. It’s that feeling you get when you know you are witnessing or creating something beautiful, something that just feels right. You can’t describe soul with words but you know it when you see it.
Who owns the clip? The answer to this question lies in what reality you want to live within and co-create. For what it’s worth, here’s my perspective: Soul owns the clip. You don’t get to own the trick, the existence of your bike, or the entire history of the universe since the Big Bang--but you do get to claim full ownership of your soulful expressions and the culture you’ve helped to create. Just like in music, you didn’t invent the instrument or the notes, but through it you nonetheless get to show who you are in a way that is as essential as eating food, but when done well is the nourishment that I believe we ultimately live for.
This perspective is not mutually exclusive to profit. It seems to me that as long as a real bike rider or bike company owns the clip--in other words, as long as corporate America doesn’t own the clip--then more often than not, riders are primarily motivated by an integrity to our culture. Cultural elders recognize a responsibility to pay forward the life of freestyle that has been gifted to them. Fortunately, it’s often true that the better the video, the better for our culture and their brand. So, finally, perhaps the real question is which value systemowns the clip? Even when money is involved, what are our primary motivations when we film or edit? When non-BMX interests step into the mix (energy drinks, the olympics, etc.) that part of our culture is no longer ours, even if we are only willing to admit the wackness that creeps in through meme accounts on Instagram. The real meaning of “selling out” isn’t about money but about soul. I’d love to live in a world where people get paid to do beautiful things so they no longer are forced to do ugly things. Luckily, in a voluntary culture, we almost always have choice here.
So now I think I’ve written enough to answer Mike’s very practical question about the former rider of his brand. I think that clip should be given to whoever will put it to best artistic use. A pure economic/legal lens would miss the bigger picture. The monetary loss for Mike’s brand will be inconsequential, while that small sacrifice of giving it away--that gift--will produce intangible rewards that cannot be measured on a balance sheet. That gift would serve the expression of the rider and the soul of our culture while building relationships with all involved. And it would feel good. So let’s allow clips to be first and foremost monuments to the rider and our culture. There may be other times when genuine economic necessity trumps soul concerns, but fortunately in BMX I think that’s a rarity.
If you take anything away from this article, I hope it is a little bit more appreciation for all the gifts you’ve been given to make this miracle of bike riding possible in your life. I find living from this place to be the most personally satisfying way I’ve found. I don’t write this with some utopian aspirations but rather to point out these essential threads that have always been at the heart of freestyle, though they can be hidden because soul cannot be measured, compared, or directly turned into popularity or profit. To access this level of satisfaction we do have to sacrifice something, like the aspiration to have the attention of the masses that can never actually understand us, or our addictions to those momentary experiences of social media fame. Life is complicated and there is no pure form of anything but I firmly believe that our culture becomes richer to the extent that we place soul as our primary compass point--and further, that soul is the only source for the kind of culture we most deeply want. Without this orientation I don’t think we have the right to call it freestyle. “Who owns the clip?” evokes deep questions about what kind of people we want to become and what kind of culture we want to build together, and it’s worth asking with every clip or edit we make.
Responses
Do you have something to add? Click the button above and get involved in the conversation.