ABSTRACT
Zero-degree architecture is a field of simple signs and complex instructions, a world of dogmatic regulation exemplified in films as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard's dystopian Alphaville and Marco Brambilla's sci-fi Demolition Man, and recognisable in just about every high street worldwide. City-based street skateboarding, then, is not so much a colonisation as a series of rolling encounters, an eventful journey. Skateboarding is antagonistic towards the urban environment, even if it causes little actual damage or disruption to the urban realm. Street skating on the physical architecture of buildings and urban spaces, then, helps to meditate between skater, other people and the city, and does so in a distinctive manner, such that, according to Thrasher, skaters are a 'breed that exists within a steel, asphalt and concrete framework'. The conflict between skateboarding and conventional urban practices can also be representational.
