VERTIGO

2023 / Art Text / Global

In life, illusions are being portrayed that are most likely tangible, yet remain precariously rehearsed. As our sense of ground shifts underfoot, we find ourselves balancing between the recollection of a stable past and the uncertainty of an ever-unfolding future—an ongoing state of vertigo.

To navigate this perpetual swirl, we posit that every moment of orientation is accompanied by the possibility of disorientation. Just as Goffman once illuminated the delicate balance of self-presentation, now we see these presentations spun into a staccato rhythm, where each frame of reality could be replaced or glitched. With the heightened pace of digital flux, boundaries between private and public, physical and virtual, real and fictive, have become a kaleidoscope of fragile vantage points.

New mapping technologies promise the comfort of direction, yet they often expose us to a labyrinth of data sets and recontextualized spaces. As Nicolas Bourriaud suggested, “We now inhabit a space riddled with potential routes, none of which claim permanence,” rendering us wanderers without a compass. The pursuit of clarity can transform into a forced march through illusions, a precarious dance that might, at any instant, tilt our sense of self.

Within this dance of vertigo, our bodies become instruments of perpetual adaptation. As the internet’s invisible net envelops us, what was once solid ground begins to quiver. Rather than offering stability, every newly opened window—be it a browser tab or an architectural frame—reveals yet another provisional horizon. Quoting Hito Steyerl, we enter “the blur of potentialities,” a swirl of compressed images and ephemeral references that refuse to settle.

In response, we devise new performances of presence, seeking to root ourselves if only for a fleeting instant. We document these actions to trace a path through the churning swirl, yet each document itself can fragment into innumerable copies, posted, shared, and repurposed. Ephemerality no longer reads as a choice but rather as a condition of living inside the spin. As soon as we attempt to fix meaning, the world’s vantage shifts.

Vertigo thus becomes our permanent backdrop. We catch ourselves in mid-fall, suspended in motion, forging meaning out of fragments even as they melt back into the current. No matter the apparatus—GPS, virtual reality, social feed, or algorithmic script—we remain tourists of an ever-shifting panorama, perched at the crossroads of multiple vantage points. In each fleeting pause, we cling to orientation, hoping for a moment of clarity before diving back into the swirl.

“The spectacle collapses in on itself,” writes Caroline Busta, “and yet we follow its undertow, half exhilarated, half uneasy.” In the end, vertigo is not a mere state of confusion but the dynamic interplay that animates the now. Only by embracing its unsteady rhythms can we hope to sense the tenuous edges of our experience—and perhaps discover a rare kind of freedom lurking within the spin.