Fall

The idea for Fall began when Raff and Warne’s urban explorations led them to climb inside an elevator shaft. They were so moved by the unusual spatial experience that they sought to translate the feeling into an artwork. A 28-second video of floating bodies (shot through a swimming pool’s underwater viewing window) was screened inside a freight elevator. Digitally programmed to synchronize its movement with that of the elevator, it generated the sensation of passing, rising, or descending bodies. This created the illusion that the falling bodies were in the same architectural time and space as the viewer in the elevator. Parachute Magazine wrote of the experience: “You began to notice… the elevator itself, its confined space, the surrounding shaft walls, the clanking and whirr of chains, gears and pulleys rolling through their respective wheels and spools. The video was the catalyst… to notice the unnoticed.” For Raff, it was about taking a banal experience and revealing it as a beautiful vertical movement through space, a transcending of gravity.