Dutch Artist Jeroen Van Loon Uses Smoke And Glass Tubes To Depict Internet

‘An Internet’ by Dutch artist Jeroen Van Loon asks us to consider how the internet may look if all information was temporary and ephemeral.

Using smoke and glass tubes arranged in the same sequence as our net cables, Van Loon presents us an installation with a potential vision of a prospective net. It is an internet unbound by constraints and constrictions — where information (represented here by smoke) can spill over into the next cable.

‘The information in Van Loon’s ‘An Internet‘ is produced and then disappears forever in a puff of smoke.’

Dutch Artist Jeroen Van Loon Uses Smoke and Glass tubes to Depict Internet

An Internet’ operates by having the smoke puffed to the glass tubes, when the tube fills up, the smoke passes through it and into a different tube. Our present net operates through a system of glass fiber cables that stretch across the ocean floor, linking continents, countries, and citizens throughout the world in seconds. The assumption is that you can gain access to the same internet data wherever you are. While present data is produced and saved indefinitely, the data in Van Loon’s’An Internet’ is generated then disappears forever in a puff of smoke. He considers that this his internet creates a”unique ephemeral moment without any form of documentation.”