Interactive Installation, Net Art
Loop is an interactive net-art installation built around a public chat room. Anyone visiting the website could join the conversation anonymously. The project began as a response to a frustration with video loops that quickly exhausted themselves through repetition. Instead of producing another loop, LOOP turned the idea into a topic of discussion. The chat was connected to a dialogue program that subtly steered conversations toward the notion of looping—repetition, circularity, and recurrence. From time to time, short quotations were inserted into the exchange, blending with the live input of participants. The collected language did not remain in the chat. Words and sentence fragments were continuously extracted and rearranged into typographic compositions generated by chance. Linear syntax broke apart. Sentences overlapped, fragmented, and reappeared as layered visual structures. At the same time, a speech synthesizer re-voiced the same material, reorganizing it into shifting rhythmic patterns. Reading, looking, and listening began to interfere with one another. What could be read became difficult to follow. What could be heard became hard to understand. The installation moved between legibility and abstraction, inviting visitors to navigate a space where language slipped between meaning and form. During the exhibition at the Műcsarnok, an unexpected situation occurred: a participant later wrote to thank the artist for the “pleasant conversation,” believing she had been chatting directly with him. They have remained in contact ever since. This confusion between human presence and programmed dialogue was not planned, but it revealed a central aspect of the work: the uncertainty about who—or what—is actually speaking.