I am a strange loop, 2017
Installation by Daniel Armengol Altayó

A device taking selfies of itself using another device in a strange loop of technological introspection.

Exhibited at Mobile Week Barcelona and Digital Decade 5.

Last updated on November 14, 2021

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I am a strange loop

I am a strange loop, 2017

A mirror mirroring a mirror. A selfie as a projection of the self. Artificial intelligence proficient at recognizing its surroundings, capable of learning and even dreaming. Psychedelia.

An interface, deeply immersed in self-observation, lost in an apparent spiral of vanity, posing and taking selfies endlessly, trapped into a strange loop of technological introspection.

A visual loop that we can intervene to become part of an altered state in search of consciousness and the meaning of the self.

The effect used in this piece is called video feedback, and Douglas Hofstadter discusses it in his book I Am a Strange Loop about the human mind and consciousness.

↑ I am a strange loop.

I am a strange loop, exhibited at Mobile Week Barcelona.

15/02/2017 → 04/03/2017
Mobile World Centre, Barcelona, ES.

↑ Photo by Berta Coll López.

Other pages linking to this page:
I am a strange loop / Selfie
I am a strange loop / Selfie
I am a strange loop / Selfie
I am a strange loop / Selfie

I am a strange loop, exhibited at Digital Decade 5.

25/08/2017 → 27/08/2017
Ugly Duck, London, GB.

Other pages linking to this page:
I am a strange loop / Selfie

I am a strange loop, 2017

TV screen mounted on a tripod, holding a selfie stick with a smartphone. The smartphone has the camera app open, and it is wired to a computer, which mirrors the screen of the smartphone, at full-screen. An Arduino board hooked to the phone jack triggers the smartphone camera at a random interval, reducing any human intervention to a mere coincidence.

The piece is executed with hardware and software with the default factory settings, which correctly aligned have the power to hypnotize us with a visual effect, strangely organic.