LOOP
Solo Exhibition
BETWEEN Art Lab, Beijing, China
March 18 – April 17, 2017
Media: mechanical installation, interactive media, video, photography
Systems: Arduino, Max/MSP, real-time generative systems

LOOP presents a body of works conceived around systems, incorporating mechanical installations, video, photography, and programmatic structures. Through mechanisms of repetition, feedback, and temporal displacement, the exhibition constructs a continuously operating field in which the works unfold as an interconnected whole across physical, technical, and perceptual dimensions.

The works operate through conditions such as mechanical movement, algorithmic logic, magnetic materials, image loops, and spatial repetition. Material transformations and programmed instructions are not employed to convey narrative content, but function as integral components of the system itself, continuously verifying its operational states. Meaning is not predetermined; it emerges through the sustained interaction of material processes, accumulated time, and shifting positions of viewing, remaining provisional and unresolved.

Within LOOP, the viewer is no longer positioned as an external subject but as a variable within the system. Presence and movement influence perceptual outcomes without interrupting the structural continuity of the works. Observation is reframed as a form of participation grounded in temporal engagement and spatial proximity rather than emotional projection.

Rejecting linear temporality, the exhibition constructs a polychronic structure in which multiple temporalities coexist. Micro-scale repetitive actions accumulate into macro-scale transformations, turning the exhibition space into an experimental field for observing systems, sensing change, and testing structural conditions. LOOP frames art as an operational condition, rendering systems visible through the coordinated interplay of material, technology, and time.

LOOP (2017) is an early, foundational exhibition in Tan Mu’s system-based practice. Conceived as a self-verifying experimental environment, the project integrates mechanical installations, interactive media, and real-time generative systems to examine repetition, feedback, and non-linear time. This project marks an early articulation of concerns that later re-emerged in Tan Mu’s painting-based practice, including the Signal and Gaze series.

Curatorial Note

LOOP marks an early yet foundational moment in Tan Mu’s long-term, system-oriented practice. First presented in 2017 at BETWEEN Art Lab in Beijing, the exhibition articulated a conceptual framework that continues to inform her work today: the treatment of art as an operational system shaped by repetition, feedback, and temporal circulation rather than as a vehicle for representation or narrative expression.

Bringing together mechanical installations, interactive media, video, and photography, LOOP established an experimental environment in which materials, technologies, and viewers were embedded within a continuously running structure. The exhibition foregrounded processes over outcomes, positioning meaning as something generated through sustained operation, accumulated time, and shifting perceptual conditions. In doing so, it proposed a model of viewing in which the observer functioned as a variable within the system rather than an external interpreter.

Historically, LOOP can be understood as a formative exploration of concerns that would later re-emerge in Tan Mu’s painting-based practice, where complex global systems—technological, infrastructural, and temporal—are translated into visual structures. While the mediums and scale of her work have since evolved, the exhibition’s emphasis on system visibility, non-linear time, and self-verification remains central to her broader artistic trajectory.

Seen in retrospect, LOOP occupies a critical position within Tan Mu’s oeuvre: not as an isolated early experiment, but as the conceptual groundwork for an expanded practice that continues to investigate how systems shape perception, subjectivity, and experience across media and contexts.