Aroundaround

Aroundaround is a term used in contemporary media theory and art practice to describe works that emphasize circularity, repetition, and looping structures. The concept is not tied to a single medium; it appears in video, sound, installation, and interactive formats. The central idea is to present events as recurring cycles rather than linear progress, inviting viewers to attend to memory, perception, and the fragility of chronology.

The phrase began to circulate in online forums and critical essays in the early 2020s as a way to capture how certain artists arrange material in self-referential loops. Critics sometimes spell it as around-around to highlight its recursive nature.

Practices described under the label aroundaround include looping video sequences that restart with small variational changes, generative soundscapes that reconstitute themes, and installations where audience interaction re-triggers cycles. Textual devices such as repeated phrases appear with incremental differences. Projects often foreground ambiguity about causality and time.

In academic writing, aroundaround is used as a conceptual lens to analyze works that resist definitive beginnings or endings and that foreground perceptual time. Since it is not attached to a single creator or movement, the term serves more as a category for discussion than a canon.

Reception has been mixed. Some critics praise the approach for expanding possibilities of narrative and sensory experience; others find the looping effects opaque or repetitive. Proponents argue that circular structure can crystallize memory and attention to process.

See also non-linear storytelling, circular narrative, looping music, and cyclical time in art.