Itamar Gov participated in Ars Electronica Festival 2026, held in Linz, Austria, from September 9 to 13, with The Rhinoceros in the Room (Or: A Tale of Banality and Evil). Presented within the festival’s Negotiating Humanity programme, the installation was exhibited in the old gym at BRG Fadingerstraße in the OK QUARTER.
Inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 play Rhinoceros, the work combines a monumental, hand-sewn white rhinoceros with an eight-channel sound composition. In Ionesco’s play, the inhabitants of a small town gradually transform into rhinoceroses and come to accept the violence accompanying this transformation. Drawing on this narrative, Gov examines the spread of authoritarian ideologies, conformity, and individual responsibility.
The sound composition, created by Bruno Delepelaire, features contralto opera singer Noa Beinart performing Goethe’s Erlkönig alongside the Hebrew lullaby Hitragut (1935). Bringing together history, myth, religion, and political responsibility, the installation investigates how authoritarian worldviews become normalized through collective imaginaries, language, and cultural narratives.
The Rhinoceros in the Room draws attention to the danger posed not only by the sudden emergence of authoritarian ideologies but also by their gradual integration into everyday life. The work invites viewers to reconsider the assumptions underpinning collective beliefs and the boundaries of individual and shared responsibility.
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