2019
Title: Throb
Autor: Winnie Soon
The project Throb makes a direct connection to an iconic and animated graphic called throbber through generating the typographical symbols with characters —, \, |, /, usually indicating (micro-)temporal actions are performed behind the screens of loading, waiting and buffering in digital culture. It is commonly seen while waiting for a transaction to complete or loading a live stream on a screen. The “now” that we are immediately experienced via streaming and displaying live data, from personal computers, smartphones, IoT devices, and among other interfaces, is essentially a delayed present with networked agencies, computational procedures and technological operativities.
This piece explores different scales of time and temporality, including spinning and generative times, machine and waiting times, processing and executing times, storing and printing times, past and present times, evolving and perpetual times, examining how the affective nowness and perceptible realities are entangled with computational operativities. While a throbber may convey a negative connotation with the need of waiting for an unknowable time, the time may be considered as unproductive or as a waste of time. Through the deep examination of times, ‘Throb’ invites speculation on this cultural icon beyond the slowness of networks and visual interpretation.