Réka Harsányi (wowsomevisual) — LOOP² 2026
The afterimage refers to the lingering experience following the disappearance of the image itself—an impression left behind by the eye, memory, and the constant reproduction by the nervous system of the recent impression. It is located at the crossroads between the lasting physiological foundation of photography and the emergent nature of the loop: the point when the image is no longer present and starts taking on a new shape—a flicker, a remnant, a repetition.
In this work, the loop is not treated as an insignificant technical issue, but as the main subject of study. Nothing here happens only once. Rather, the installation is made to be entered into, and not just observed—every passage through the 20-second sequence changes the impression previously made, like a true afterimage does not repeat itself. Framed in a 360° room with four walls surrounding the viewer’s physical presence, the work changes from the projection aimed at the viewer to the entity that is inhabited by the viewer—an image and an afterimage, a room and a loop, both at once, in one repeated act.
On the occasion of photography’s bicentennial, the work questions the persistence of the image when it stops being fixed and circulates, degrades and reforms itself—what exactly becomes visible only in the very moment following perception.
