SANATORIUM presents Berkay Tuncay’s five-channel video installation, The Story of Writing ASMR, for Art Rotterdam 2025. The installation focuses on the continuous movement of hands on the keyboard, introducing viewers to a hypnotic experience. The texts being typed are taken from The Story of Writing (1932), written by Bertha Parker, the book that inspired the title of the video installation. Tuncay has rearranged and divided these texts into sections. The videos, titled Beginning of Writing, Pictographic Writing, Syllabic Writing, Alphabetic Writing Part 1, and Alphabetic Writing Part 2, follow a storyline and order that parallels the referenced book. Each section completes the narrative of the text with contemporary ASMR video aesthetics from YouTube and objects that set the mood of the related video. While the clicking sounds of the keyboard are present, no actual excerpts from the book are shown. This installation showcases Tuncay’s long-term research on internet culture, following his current focus on experimental poetry, sound, and particularly ASMR.*
*ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) refers to a tingling sensation triggered by specific auditory and visual stimuli, often cultivated in online communities through whispered speech, tapping sounds, and other soothing audiovisual content.
