Joseph Kittinger

In 1960 the pilot Joseph Kittinger carried out what must surely be the ultimate fall. He travelled in a balloon to 102,800 feet (31,330 m) - the outer edge of the earth's atmosphpere - and then threw himself out into space. Eventually, at 18,000 feet (5,500 m) he opened a parachute, but most of the journey he spent in free fall.

It is said that, as he jumped, he was sure he would die; and that for him the most testing part was not the thought of death, or the physical pain, but the extreme loneliness at what is really the edge of the world. Even if I didn't know about the background to this image, I would guess that it portrays someone who is risking his life - survival does look unlikely.

In my opinion, the most stunning part is that he came down largely unscathed, took part in a number of similar adventures and is apparently still alive to date. Sometimes life really does tell the best stories - Münchhausen, eat your heart out.

Sam Taylor - Wood

Just like Paddy Jolley's mattress photograph, this image offers a lot more questions than answers. How was this photograph made? Is it a real-time shot or was it staged, Jackie-Chan - like, with wires? On another level, why did the woman stand on the chair? Will she break a leg? On yet another level, what and who does she stand for? Immortality?

Of course the answers are well-known, but I find it so much more pleasurable to pretend ignorance and to speculate.

Ordinary People

From The Times front page earlier this year, during the season of extremely high winds. What is it about falling, flying, being in mid-air that fascinates us so much?

There is a link between falling and mortality: angels and gods can fly and hover, but us mortals are slowly falling to our deaths. The hope is that somehow we will never hit the ground. Photography freezes a moment in time and creates an image of immortality. We all can hover.


Even worse than falling is being thrown, even if it is for the best.
(Metro front page, 5th of Feb this year.)

Denis Darzacq

Denis Darzacq's series La Chute (The Fall) depicts young people falling in urban environments. He persuaded street dancers to pose, asking them to look expressionless. Apart from being a series of stunning, stirring, poetic images, it is a political comment about a generation in freefall.

His comment is: 'I like the fact that you can read into these photos whatever you want. Will we let them hit the ground? Will anyone rush out to scoop them up?'

Catherine Yass/ The Human Cannon Ball

Catherine Yass's photographs taken out of a lift are well known. The blurred buildings, zooming past the camera, are also an image of falling - our falling.

This still from Yass's film 'High Wire' depicts a funambulist, a high wire walker. High wire walking is the last circus discipline left where performers still risk life and limb with no safety net, so we don't have to. The funambulist here is Didier Pasquette, one of the very few left in the world. During filming, he had to turn back after a few steps. Apparently it was too windy, but no explanation is given in the film or notes. Strangely, way this work encompasses failure as much as audacity.

I saw the human cannon ball perform his act at the Cornwall Show last year. Four counties clubbed together to bring him over from the States. I was very touched by his act. There is something strangely life-affirming about someone who will get himself shot 80 feet up, until he becomes literally a dot in the air - a truly pointless and heroic act.

I like the multi-exposure element of the photograph - it reminds me of Muybridge's horse shots - but it doesn't sufficiently convey the outrageousness and loneliness of the endeavour. Yass's image shows that element much better.

Pascual Sisto

Pascual Sisto's Video works are hilarious. 'No strings attached' features a miraculously animated, kicked-around plastic chair that hardly touches the ground, '28 Years in the Implicate Order' an unsettling car-park video quote. Viewing his work, even in small streaming size, has an strangely physical effect. There is a lot of slapstick.

I was unable to embed video pieces here, but they can be viewed at www.pascualsisto.com.

Johanna Billing

This woman has obviously lost her bottle. Looking at this image, a video still, I can almost feel the height myself, and also the fear, which I remember as a kind of numb, pumped sensation - a metallic taste in the mouth and cold feeling on the skin.

The question is - which way down will she take? The fast or the slow? Even climbing down would be a way of falling.

Bas Jan Ader 2

Bas Jan Ader let himself fall out of trees, off roofs, and into this canal. He also made himself cry in front of the camera. In his films the discomfort is very apparent. I like the tragic, melodramatic element in his deliberately hurting himself and not enjoying it, and somehow managing to make it look like an accident. He reminds me of a sad clown or a fallen aerialist. He eventually perished in a small boat on the ocean - only the boat was found - the final and ultimate misadventure.


A re-enactment of Bas Jan Ader's canal piece. It's a shame that the Serpentine is not as deep as the Amsterdam canals, but in a way this makes it almost funnier.

Paddy Jolley

This image really intrigues me. Who dropped the mattress, and from what height? The ceiling can't be that high so where is the person or machine that suspended the object before the fall? I like the irony too - we would normally expect something else to fall onto a mattress or mat.

Ian Davenport

Ian Davenport's drip paintings could be described as traces of gravity on a small scale. It is apparent a lot of skill and effort goes into making them just so. I would love to see some examples that are not just so - that have gone wrong.

Bas Jan Ader 1

Tears and snot are falling. They remind me of Ian Davenport's paintings. Or should that be vice versa?

Susan Derges

Drops, tears, falling, rising, suspense.

I love the way in which every drop contains a tiny representation of this woman's face. Susan Derges used a machine utilising the properties of light, sound and gravity to create these drops, making visible he laws of physics.