Arranging smoke and glass tubes in the same order internet cables, Dutch multimedia artist Jeroen Van Loon asks us to consider how the internet may look if all data was temporary and ephemeral.
“An Internet” installation works by having the smoke puffed into the glass tubes, when the tube fills up, the smoke passes through it and into another tube. Our current internet operates through a system of glass fibre cables that stretch across the ocean floor, connecting continents, countries, and citizens all over the globe in seconds.
The premise is that you can have access to the same internet data wherever you are. While current data is produced and stored forever, the data in Van Loon’s ‘An Internet’ is produced and then disappears forever in a puff of smoke. He believes that this his internet creates a “unique ephemeral moment without any form of documentation.”
All images © Gert-Jan van Rooij
