IN MEDIAS RES (2022)
(Sound, 27:00 min)
Haunted by parasites, white bread, ancestral fish, French bureaucracy, and Paleolithic magic, In Medias Res considers our self-given position in the midst of things that we have come to view as separate from us, along with the collateral feeling of alienation from the surrounding worlds.
As a contemporary rendition of the age-old oral traditions, the audio essay draws its form as a constellation of ambiguous analogies, vague cross-references, weasel words, and anecdotic storytelling. Bridging together multiple timelines, the work speculates on the abyssal entanglements in a world immersed with things—things that engulf us, swallow us whole, and spit us out transformed.
‘The End of the World’ written by Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee, performed by Skeeter Davis (1962). RCA Records Nashville / Edition Wilhelm Hansen.
Typeface ‘Astro’ by Kazuhiro Aihara.
The language of the work is English. A transcript of the audio is available for reading from the gallery by request. The accessibility to Mediabox is limited due to stairs. The work is also available from the gallery on a separate iPad and headphones.
Valter Tornberg’s works range from multimedia installations and performances to poetry and writing—unpacking technological, ideological, and political structures behind images and anthropocentric systems of knowledge production, along with the concomitant recursivity of knowledge. By researching alternative ecological figurations and worldings, reaching from pre-historic phenomena to digital technologies, Tornberg’s works explore ambiguities that can suggest more complex imbrications and alliances.
Tornberg graduated from Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam, NL) and has previously exhibited works at Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, NL) and Het HEM (Zaandam, NL). Tornberg begins MA studies at Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam, NL) in the Critical Studies department this fall.
The artist’s work has been supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).