26/11 2025
Summer Sessions 2025 | Filip Smrekar – echo//
As part of the Summer Sessions residency program organized by the Metamedia Association, the artist Filip Smrekar developed the sound installation titled echo// at V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, from July to September 2025.
echo// is about sound, time, and the quiet process of decay. It is made with two reel-to-reel tape recorders connected in a loop. Tape recorder A records and plays at the same time, and its output is sent into tape recorder B, which plays the signal back into A. Whatever enters the loop is immediately repeated, passed through the tape, and fed back into itself. The loop begins in silence. When the machines are turned on, the vibration of their motors creates the first signal. The record heads pick up that faint hum, and the system starts to wake up. That small noise travels through the loop and layers on itself over and over. The loop is short, about ten to thirty seconds. Each time the signal comes around, it changes slightly. Dust, friction, and the natural imperfections of magnetic tape leave their trace. At first, the sound has a soft vintage crackle. Over the course of a few hours, that texture breaks down and slowly turns into a wash of white noise, like a memory wearing itself out. The tape loop is a closed system. No new sounds are added after the start. All change comes from the tape moving in circles, repeating and slowly degrading itself. This is a small model of entropy, the inevitable drift of things toward disorder. The visual presence of the piece is quiet. The tape recorders and their spinning reels are visible, with the tape running vertically, but they are placed off to the side and softly lit so they do not feel like the main attraction. The work is meant to be atmospheric, something that lives in the room rather than demanding attention. echo// is a piece that invites patience. If you sit with it, you may not notice the change as it happens, but if you hear it at the start and return hours later, it will be completely different. It reflects the way things in life decay almost invisibly until the difference is undeniable. The machines are both instruments and witnesses, carrying the memory of every repetition until everything, given enough time, fades into noise.
The work on August 28, 2025, at the event Test_Lab: Summer Sessions 2025, an informal setting for the presentation, demonstration, testing, and discussion of artistic research and development. The event presented the outcomes of this year’s Summer Sessions residencies. The goal of the event was to demonstrate the projects live and to invite the audience to ‘test’ the artworks hands-on.
Filip Smrekar is a visual artist based in Zagreb, Croatia, whose work explores the entropy of the world through materiality, atmosphere, and texture. Working across digital printmaking, 3D modeling, relief, and traditional media, he investigates the dissolution and transformation of surfaces and forms. He holds an MA in Painting and Printmaking from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. His work has been exhibited internationally, including a series of lithographic prints shown in San Francisco and a mosaic featured in a biennale in Italy. In addition to his studio practice, he runs thematic painting workshops, fostering creativity through experimental methods. Smrekar’s practice continues to evolve through his fascination with decay, tension, and the abstract narratives embedded in the surfaces we inhabit.
Udruga Metamedij je korisnik institucionalne podrške Nacionalne zaklade za razvoj civilnoga društva za stabilizaciju i/ili razvoj udruge.
