TOR
experimental video

An archaic nomad moves around with his horse through a seemingly natural environment. Some cultic rituals are performed to produce a stone-like data storage device. When the character connects with the media a look at our digital information society is released.

Synopsis / Summary
A mystical and archaic figure wanders through nature; The lonely nomad collects and processes objects to black powder; He lingeres only briefly in temporary storage sites – he is in continuous motion; The focus of his trip is the implementation and preparation of self-willed and primitive rituals; The alternating actions rest, travel and search are penetrated by micro sequences that share a moment on a engineered parallel world. The wanderer omits no effort to find the desired items and is constantly accompanied by the wind. After performing the ritual, he finally goes on a snowy hill where he finds a similar place of worship, as the one he had previously built by himself; Gray smoke rises and the nomad begins to deconstruct the primitive construction. A strange object to appears (somekind of a technical storage device), the character connects to the item and by that, an artificially-technical portal appears that has been previously indicated by the micro-sequences. It creates an abstract chaotic digital world and takes reference to our digital information society.

Background & Vilém Flusser
The video work deals with the text „aspects of nomadic life“ by Vilém Flusser. Flusser – who has not fully experienced the digital revolution and our development for ubiquitous information society – writes about a new form of nomadism: the „information nomads“. In his (hypothetical) thesis he divides human history in three new sections: It sarts with the „old Stone Age“ in which all human were hunter and gatherers – they were nomads. This era is interrupted by the „ early Stone Age“ which is heralded with the invention of agriculture. Man becomes sedentary; This period persists up in the 1980s; It ends with the invention of the World Wide Web – he calls this the „Immaterial age“. Humanity now is undergoing a major change: Although we are still remained sedentary from physical point of view – the informations now penetrate – like a rumbling storm – through our homes and we have become digital hikers. Today, Flusser’s thesis can be read as an almost prophetic message. The work „Tor“ describes the behavior of a peculiar nomadic wandering between the times and technologies. The work reflects on the contemporary use of information.