Loopscroll

LOOPSCROLL is an installation that tricks its users to invest time in a simple yet addictive game. Through this altar, players worship a living imagery that demands frustration, competition, and obsession. It will keep you wanting to start over, never leaving the machine. Shaman garage invites us to “play” at doomscrolling. Is it fun? Using classical game mechanics “difficulty levels,  frustrations and rewards” LOOPSCROLL highlights how these are very close to the ones used on social media platforms and how they become addictive.

In this playful installation, Shaman Garage wanted to reflect on the context we understand social media, the narratives it generates and the behaviors it forces on us. While the arcade reproduces the addictive mechanics of money driven social media, fooling the players in mini feedback loops; it is also presented as an object of worship, revealing the internet folklore as a treasure from the past, a complex and fascinating mythology.

Shaman garage conducted an archival exercise, realising that the memesphere  needs careful hands to preserve its symbols, icons and narratives. “Memes  privilege emotion and vitality over reason and accuracy; they reward the absurd  and the exaggerated. This is precisely why we want to “rescue” them, to preserve  their value.” 

This project is supported by Cross-Tic, Planetart and Sickhouse.

If you would like to get a glimpse of how does the machine function we have prepared a simple export in which you can play the main game loop. Note that the music automata and the printer are not implemented in the digital version.