Weeks 8 & 9: Analysis of Surf Aesthetics

I found Sandow Birk's portfolio fascinating and atypical of surf art. In his work, surfing is tangled up or smothered entirely by other hectic elements of life, past and present. Unlike many artists, Birk doesn't glorify the sun's position in his work, a trope almost inseparable from any artistic representation of surfing. This trend can be seen in the endless photos starring a surfer silhouetted against a sunset or sunrise on the horizon, songs juxtaposing the hot sun with the cool surf, surf brand insignia, and endless other outlets. In this way, I read Birk's work as attempting to define surfing beyond its key natural elements (land, sea and sky) and more, in many cases, as a social struggle and movement. He almost denaturalizes or despiritualizes the sport. Many of his paintings don't even show a surfer in action, just the occasional presence of a surfboard. However, all of them feature the ocean on a large majority of the canvas, because as Angie's film today mentioned, the ocean is the only true necessity for surfing.

On to another unexpected aesthetic surf hybrid, I was surprised and fascinated by Trey's comparison of surfing to pornography. While I doubted the concept at first, I was almost immediately convinced before I finished reading the sentence. Surfing and sex have always been intertwined, as emphasized in a few of our course readings as well as almost every surf film. One could easily argue that both surfing and sex are pleasure sports. The breakdown of the physical act of being 'barreled' took that concept even further by linking the pure heart and nature of both activities, rather than their similar concepts (fantasy, beauty/perfection ideals, objectification/penetration). I would also argue that surfing and porn share similar fetishization habits, as both adhere to the concept that "bigger is better" when it comes to waves or body parts. The porn industry and the surfing industry also both rely on manufacturing a false paradise, promising to offer the keys to a) the perfect wave or b) the perfect orgasm (and how different are they really?) As Trey pointed out, both activities have been co-opted by young men specifically. As a film major, the issue of the "target audience" is especially fascinating to me, especially in ideas like this, where a seemingly disarmed topic like surfing can be discussed alongside the mildly controversial (in our sexually repressed society, at least) topic of pornography, and then loaded with greater implications for larger social issues, like sexism in the sports world.

I would describe my learning this quarter as 10 weeks of surprises. I never considered surfing's deeply rooted social battles, nor its meaning to lifelong surfers, nor the complexity of the evolution of surf music, nor the meaning of various board shapes, a detail I considered to be minute. Once I learned these things, they all made sense; none of it was illogical or nonsensical. It felt more like remembering than learning anew. I think a common mistake made when considering surf culture is to write it off as simple because it's recreational. If political identities are defined as likeminded people rallying around a cause, then surfing can easily be considered as deeply as other major issues. This class serves to remind me that all knowledge is important and influential in some way or another, which helps justify my massive and building debt :)