FREE FALL | PALLE TORSSON
Free Fall (2011), is a machinima created by Palle Torsson, and it is the first video intervention in the programming of Metamorphosis, the fifth edition of Digital Video Wall, an annual project curated by Gemma Fantacci and structured in thematic chapters aimed at promoting the dissemination and experimentation of digital art.
Palle Torsson is one of the pioneers of game art and artistic modding. His early raids into game spaces began in 1996 with his friend and colleague Tobias Bernstrup while modding the first-person shooter video game Duke Nukem 3D. The young artists used it to create the performance Museum Meltdown, in which the artists recreated the environments of the Arken Museum of Modern Art and subjected the reproduction of the digital works to the horde of mutant creatures: inevitably, some of the museum’s works were destroyed in order to survive. As the artist said when interviewed for the exhibition Game Video/Art. A Survey, «video games have the potential to function as an autonomous playground and space to address issues such as system logic, the matrix, network boundaries, functional objects, algorithmic worlds, and the tension between immersion and user control». Despite the repeated promotion of commercial stereotypes proposed by many mainstream video games, Palle Torsson identifies a narrative-performative potential in the video game space. This is what enables potential subversions and to explore alternative and experimental uses of the medium.
Free Fall is a modified version of the video game Half-Life 2, in which the viewer is visually overwhelmed by a myriad of seemingly lifeless bodies, which like puppets fall inside a tunnel, slamming into the surface of the environment, before crashing to the ground in a pool of blood. Taking advantage of the game engine, the artist asserts that he «embarked on a visual exploration of groundlessness, offering a perception-altering journey through a shaft of free-falling entities. This work poses philosophical questions about stability and orientation, drawing viewers into reflections on their own perspectives». Free Fall is a philosophical and aesthetic reading of our society, now more than ever locked in a perpetual free fall on multiple fronts, socially, ecologically, politically, as well as economically. As Torsson comments, “I think [the piece] can be seen as a metaphor for many things. For example, of the perpetual free fall of our societies, stock markets and the specific ecology we inhabit. Furthermore, this work alludes to superstructures that we can ascertain and recognize, but which act as black boxes over which we have little or no influence. When the act of seeing becomes a game, a destructive entertainment activity slowly drains the world dry. The rabbit hole ends in a flat line».
© Palle Torsson, Free Fall, video still, courtesy the artist
Palle Torsson, Free Fall, installation view on Digital Video Wall at Metronom, IT. ©