A new arcade machine by Shaman Garage

This week Shaman Garage is presenting their new project, LOOPSCROLL, an arcade machine inspired by slot machines and social media! This project is supported by Cross-Tic, Planetart and Sickhouse.

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 instagram. 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.”

Come discover LOOPSCROLL at GOGBOT from Thursday 17 to Sunday 21 September in the Oude Kerk. (more info about GOGBOT on their website).

LOOPSCROLL will be part of the arcade corner of the new location of Sickhouse. Stay tuned for the reopening beginning 2026!

LOOPSCROLL is a project by Shaman garage . The arcade was created by Pablo San Gregorio, Ivan McGill, Pako Portalo and Yuxuan Zhao.
This project is possible thanks to CROSS-TIC program, 3D printing work made at Tetem.