Tanat Teeradakorn Reflects on Hito Steyerl's Vertical Perspective
In a One on One feature for ArtAsiaPacific, artist Tanat Teeradakorn discusses his encounter with Hito Steyerl's 2011 essay "In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective," published on e-flux. Teeradakorn highlights Steyerl's analysis of how contemporary imaging systems—drones, satellites, surveillance, digital mapping—disrupt the traditional linear perspective that underpinned Western art and philosophy. Steyerl argues that linear perspective, with its stable horizon and fixed observer, created an illusion of order and objectivity. In contrast, modern technologies impose a vertical, top-down "God's-eye view," erasing the horizon and inducing a condition of "groundlessness" where orientation and stability are lost, plunging subjects into a state of permanent free fall. Teeradakorn emphasizes Steyerl's mapping of structural relationships between technology, politics, perception, and power, and how these reshape experiences of space, time, and historical reality.
Key facts
- Tanat Teeradakorn wrote about Hito Steyerl for ArtAsiaPacific's One on One series.
- Teeradakorn first encountered Steyerl's work around 2016.
- The essay discussed is 'In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective' (2011).
- The essay was published on e-flux.
- Steyerl argues linear perspective in Western art produced a stable horizon and fixed observer.
- Contemporary technologies like drones and satellites replace the horizon with a vertical perspective.
- Steyerl describes this as a 'God's-eye view'.
- This shift creates a condition of 'groundlessness' and permanent free fall.
Entities
Artists
- Tanat Teeradakorn
- Hito Steyerl
Institutions
- ArtAsiaPacific
- e-flux