In Free Fall, 2010

As an artist, theoretician, and filmmaker Hito Steyerl examines the circulation of images in contemporary visual culture, as well as the dynamics of global capitalism. Her approach to contemporary art explores the interface of politics and aesthetics, and in so doing draws our attention to the close interplay of rhetorical device, historical narration, and the introduction of an increasing number of new visual norms.
Combining various segments and techniques, ranging from interviews to computer animations and a repertoire of images, the video In Free Fall narrates the serviceable life of a Boeing 707-700 4X-JYI. Set in an aeroplane junkyard in California’s Mojave Desert, the jet’s service history is recounted chronologically by various characters, both fictional and real, and accompanied by a miscellany of videos displayed on a laptop screen resting among various pieces of scrap metal and disused airplanes. While the Boeing’s story traverses the fine line between reality and fantasy, this multilayered orchestration by Hito Steyerl invites the viewer to reflect on the value of life in the age of global financial free fall: “[…] if there is no stable ground available for our social lives and philosophical aspirations, the consequence must be a permanent […] state of free fall for subjects and objects alike.”[1] (SG)

[1] Hito Steyerl, „In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective“, in: e-flux journal, 24, April 2011.