Torsten Zenas Burns is a visual artist and media arts educator living in Helsinki, Finland.
Burns received a BFA in video from the New York State College of Art & Design at Alfred University, and an MFA in New Genres: video & performance art from the San Francisco Art Institute. Burns has created video, photographs, sculptural installations, and electronic publishing projects exploring re-imagined educational practices, speculative bodies, experimental space programs, post-humans, improvisational movement, zombie / afterlife relationships, humanimal stories, appropriated 1970's television, cryptid mythologies, family archives, Scandinavian folklore, and ecological fictions.
Long-term projects include collaborations with Monika Czyzyk, Darrin Martin, Hanne k. Burns, and Anthony Discenza (Halflifers).
Burns selected video & net-art works are distributed and collected by Vtape, Rhizome Art Base, Video Data Bank, and Electronic Arts Intermix.
Burns has participated in several residency programs including Ucross Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, The Experimental Television Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, L.M.C.C. World Views Studio Program, Smackmellon Studio Program, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, The Outpost, Signal culture, and f.eks.(AIR).
Burns has had video work screened at the Museum of Modern Art's Video Viewpoints and Premieres series, The Whitney Museum of American art, The Pacific Film Archive, SF Camera Works, Dumbo Arts Center, Video_Dumbo, Aurora Picture Show, Migrating Forms, Krowswork Gallery, The Chicago Underground Film Festival, The European Media Arts Festival, Impakt festival, The Melbourne International Film festival, Yanhuang Art Museum, The Oberhausen Short Film Festival, The Busan International Video festival, MUU Gallery, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, The Tack Room Project Space, The Stuttgarter Filmwinter: Festival for Expanded Media, and the Mältinranta Art Center in Tampere, FI.
In 2022 Burns was awarded a visual arts grant from Taike / Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Burns is a board member for Vartiosaari Artists ry co-running the artist house studios and residency program on Vartiosaari island, Helsinki, Finland.