How is skate video transformed when it is produced in Cowbird?

Link: http://cowbird.com/story/113050/

Cowbird is a public library of stories and a way to share experiences with other people on the internet. Cowbird is designed to “preserve exceptional stories of human life” (Harris 2014) and sees itself as an alternative to the flood of stories featured on Facebook and Twitter which might not hold as much emotional significance. Also, Cowbird does not feature any video material. Instead, the power of original photographs, text and sound is used to compile a collection of stories and form connections between stories that share location, date and/or theme. This online service became immediately intriguing as a way to explore the transformation of skate video, when produced through a medium without video and one with an emphasis on the use of text, an element which is a rarity in skate video as an online video practice.

To create this sketch, I took a photograph of Errol performing the finale trick of his skateboarding sequence, I recorded the sound of Errol completing the entirety of the trick sequence and also typed a short story version of the performance. These three elements were then compiled together through cowbird.com. Cowbird only allows the submission of one image per story and this restriction generates selectivity. The narrative form of skate video is thus presented visually to the audience through one encompassing image alone. Furthermore, as an affordance of Cowbird, the presence of text to communicate the narrative makes skate video more ‘story orientated’. Meaning, in combination with the presence of sound, rather than communicate a narrative succession of tricks, a non-narrative aesthetic is privileged which communicates the ‘feeling’ of skateboarding. Therefore, skate video is portrayed to the audience from a more insightful and intimate perspective due to the perceived emotional significance of storytelling which Cowbird aims to mirror.