Hasta La Ideas

It’s unlikely that 2014 will be fondly recalled as the year that saw the experience of buffering truly enter popular culture consciousness—but perhaps it should? In April, we saw Swedish broadband provider Ume.net hack an Oculus Rift headset to show what life would be like if we lived with the lag we experience online in our offline lives (with quite entertaining results). Over here in the UK, actor Kevin Bacon advertises network provider EE’s ‘superfast’ 4G with spots warning of the perils of ‘buffer-face’.

Now Brooklyn-based THINGMADE are paying tribute to the gods of digital loading sequences with this mesmerizing neon light sculpture in the image of the on-screen icon—as the website explains taking this “symbol of anticipation, frustration and promise and [extending] it indefinitely.”

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