Tor interviewed by Nicholas

TOR [steve writes: hi guys because Tor missed the intro I'll explain. Please start by talking about work, best to describe what the visitor to your show is going to see. It is a major turn off for most readers to read about abstract issues with our some context. People who don't know about the cartesian dialectic, for instance, will be intimidated and those that know about it will be suspicious that it is some partially digested buzz-word. General rule: DESCRIBE THE OBJECT OF RESEARCH BEFORE DISCUSSING THE THINGS RELATED TO IT. Remember, this is for the 90% of the visitors who need a simple introduction to the work.So what do you want to show? How will it be shown and why will it be shown?]

So what do you plan to do?

So hello Tor!

What are you reading lately?

Em im reading spinoza, ethics, em im reading, robert mcfarlane, about mountain climbing.

Is this related to your work or is it more of a side thingy?

Booth, it relates, maybe not directly, but spinoza more so because it brakes with the cartesian dialectic. Which i am also interested in my work but, like to simplify that: Yea spinoza is related to that, and the mountain walking is maybe not directly. I like hiking, i like walking and being outdoors. But i think that also relates to my work. I don't separate necessarily between what i am interested in my free time and what i make in my work. So i think yea they relate. How did you arrive here?

Emmm, i arrived by train.

By train? What about seeing it as a metaphor for your work let's say? Let say as a rouet? How did you get here?

By submarine!

By submarine? Thats pretty dark!

Is art chaotic?

Yea when its, its ee, or when i like it when, or i guess it depends. art in the context of me making it. Or no no no, scratch that. Art in the context of me engaging with art. I quite like if it is chaotic and unpredictable.

So do you like your method or the way you work to be chaotic?

I like it to be difficult. Difficult is quite often chaotic, I guess, but sometimes. Or i like it to be some kind of resistance.

Yea, cause let's say there are artist who are categorizing and are putting things into boxes in order to get somewhere. And then, Well i think art is chaotic from the start. And then you have those whom are just chaotic and make work from the the the caos.

Yea

So which one would you be, if this was the case, you think?

'The chaos i think, i mean i don't know but that's how it feels like to me. I feel, i had a conversation with a friend yesterday, or the other day and i said, oh i don't know what i am doing. And she said. Ohh i think you know exactly what you are doing.   You are doing things as they come along. Which is like: you know what you are doing, you just don't know what that is.

Yeah ey eya, so is that a method or? Hahaha or i mean how could this be seen as a method? Em Yea think maybe that could be a method. I think am a really really unprofessional artist.

Unprofessional?

Yea unprofessional. And i think im, yea i am. I think maybe i could talk think more in terms of things like method, but yea, ye yea.

Yea i agree, I think professionalism is completely overrated.

HAHAH

NO but yea, then you get back to this chaos right. Like the professional is the one trying to like box things in.

To me professionalism is connected to to outcome and efficiency and productivity. Or YEa

Or its like a goal oriented, and product oriented way of thinking too sort of effective for this more professionalized. How to be an effective machine. And i think quite often it's like, as soon as professionalism enters it quickly becomes formulated? And you maybe you can become more efficient at something but you then lose the difficulty and the friction, which to me is involved in like learning about something of discovering something.

But again when you become more professional. And now that you have this big solo show coming up, and you only have about a month,then you also need to be able to produce, you know within a certain time limit, and yea, you cant only go hiking.

So so, how far are you on this, this show?

Let say i was to ask you to visualise this show now, as if it exists within your mind. Would you like guide me thru. Just like visually what i would see?

Em, im very very in the beginning of the process. i just returned from another project. Em so i just arrived here. And ee i think i'll like to look at em, i think in terms of visuals it will be some sort of response to this town and the objects that i engage with and the people i engage with inside the town and maybe i'll make some sort of, em, i think this show will incorporate various. Things will have. Will be worn. They will have a history behind them. And they will have some sort of connection to, or em locality to this place. Or to other people. And i would like to people in here and somehow work with that somehow. IT's maybe a little bit em, familiar feeling maybe a bit like pub feeling. Also bit like an alien.

yea eya eya makes sense totally.

Or maybe bit like an alien pub. And alien drinks.

yeayeayeay, its a good metaphor for. YOu know you can like, if you go to italy or france you will find these pubs. Like dublin bars, like paddy's, whatever they are called you know. But they are all like bought, you can like go on a web site and you can chose between three different packages. Where all these small things are, you know made to look old.

Yeayea they are like mcdonald's. Like local mcdonalds. Which is the funny part.

Yeayea so you know all these stories, of like the skipper bringing in this old piece of i dunno. Whatever. you know. Object. You know these objects just made to you know look real, and to me it's kinda similar, they are made to construct this situation you know,. Like this show.

Yea i think the difference too the irish pub or mcdonald's, or its definitely similar. but i think i have not yet. I don't have a emm an international. I guess the international, or the unifying thing is that there will be like, whatever, like my choosing, and putting together and my curating of the pub. But i don't quite know what that would entail like. And that always seem to change, cause i have this relationship too coming and doing these things that i think that thinking is kinda place specific. Or like cognition is thinking is specific to place so even though i have ideas of what i am gonna do in an alien pub, i still think that it's a, this place and this town. will form how that alien pub will be put together.

YEa

Cause i, the way i think here is different from the way i thought there. Where paddy's is a design from a control center somewhere else.

YEayeayeaya well now we have to remember that this is for a bigger audience, so emm im gonna go on>

ahaha this is really fun

Weeeellll, yea so do you consider your work relevant?

i em i don't know i, I rather people answer that question, I don't think i am making my work for it to be relevant or, I like when it's relevant. I think that's my ambition and i quite like to make it relevant. But i also, em i someone has invited me, and i hope they think my work is relevant. So its relevant to me.

Eyayeayea thats a lovely answer

Thank you, no thankyou