ABSTRACT
The previous chapter discussed the link between aestheticization, risk-taking and a postmodern sublime, and the relationship between aestheticization and commodification was acknowledged – particularly in the surfing media. Aestheticization is fundamental to the nature of the surfing subculture. In its postmodern form, aestheticization operates within, and substantially in concert with, a (hyper)commodified environment (Lash 1990, Jameson 1991, Crook et al 1992, Lash and Urry 1994, Kumar 1995, Featherstone 1995, Welsch 1996, Malpas 2005). Some social theorists have focussed on the potential for increasing levels of commodification to lead to alienation, fragmentation and depthlessness (e.g. Baudrillard 1988a, Jameson 1991), while others have emphasized its potential to facilitate creativity, liberation and resistance (e.g. Fiske 1989, Clarke 1976), and others have been more ambivalent, recognizing both the potential for liberation and despair (e.g. Bauman 1992, Kellner 1992).
