1 kbps began with a book—one that documented early 20th-century Japanese textile designs. In these pages, I encountered a philosophy of perception: simple natural phenomena distilled into intricate patterns. Japanese artists of that era didn’t just imitate nature; they studied its patterns, gestures, and moods, transforming them into visual systems that spoke to the ephemerality of life. Their work captured not only what was seen, but what was felt—what might soon disappear. Images below show selections from the Japanese Textile Designs Album, preserved at the Providence Public Library. Ranging from quick sketches to finished illustrations, these studies offer more than decorative motifs—they reflect a logic of observation.

I approached this archive with questions, not expertise—with an interest in how two distant systems of thought might illuminate each other. I was especially curious about how Japanese artists were able to derive such rich, layered philosophical concepts from their observation of nature. What kind of thinking allows a pattern of birds or flowers to become an expression of transience, of infinity, of rest?

That curiosity led me to experiment with using the framework of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding—his foundational text in Western empirical philosophy—as a way of analyzing these textile designs. What intrigued me was the possibility of using Western philosophical frameworks, specifically, Locke’s empiricism, to study Japanese textile philosophy.

Locke posits that ideas are formed through experiences involving the senses and reflection. Simple ideas are those pure and uncomplicated notions that first enter the mind through the senses. Locke claims that simple ideas also have the ability to reflect on other ideas that enter their domain. He suggests that complex ideas are formed by combining simple ideas obtained from experiences. When simple ideas, such as colors and forms,  connect, whether by chance or through intentional mental combination, they form complex ideas such as time and space.

Using Locke’s framework, I deconstructed ten key ideas from the textile archive—concepts like unity, extension, motion, rest, infinity. I then designed ten illustrated plates, each representing one of these ‘simple ideas’ through pattern, form, and rhythm. When flipped and assembled, the reverse sides of these plates reveal a larger composite poster, a kimono image layered with symbolic motifs. This gesture reflects Locke’s theory of complex ideas: the notion that meaning arises from the accumulation of smaller, sensory-based concepts. It also evokes the act of interpretation—how we flip, connect, and reassemble fragments to perceive a whole.¹⁷

While developing this project, I also began to explore the space between words—not semantically, but spatially. I wondered what happens when yesterday and tomorrow are placed side by side, with no space in between. Does the absence of distance collapse time? Do we lose sight of the present? So I created a visual study: arranging the two words across different spatial intervals, from tightly packed to widely separated. What I noticed was this—when the gap was small, the experience felt instantaneous, almost breathless. But when the space widened, the eye slowed down. The mind lingered. That space felt like “presence”

It wasn’t just a visual experiment. It was a way of thinking about how interface design affects our perception of time. On the internet, distance doesn’t exist in the same way. There’s no walking between rooms, no waiting between pages. Just an endless present—immediate, compressed, frictionless. But what if a gap—just a bit of visual distance—could reintroduce presence? Could make us aware of the act of transitioning? This design test made me wonder: maybe in the gap between yesterday and tomorrow, we finally become aware of ourselves.

These were the starting points of a system. In turn, I began developing an animated sequence—composed of video, motion design, and transitional visual moments—that visualized not data, but duration. Inspired by Locke’s writing on succession—“Reflection on the appearance of several ideas one after another furnishes us with the idea of duration”—I created visual rhythms that stretch, flicker, and fold over time. The result was 1kbps, an immersive installation that moves slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, offering no clear payoff, no end. The installation consists of fragmented imagery: actual footage of nature, hand-drawn animations, and UI-like visual moments—countdowns, status bars, the word 'Posting' fading into 'Posted.' These are gestures drawn from the digital everyday. I wanted to collect the briefest pauses in online life—the half-second between pressing a button and seeing a result, the micro-moments where we’re made to wait.

The project is also an attempt to embody the Japanese concept of mono-no-aware: the awareness of transience, the gentle sadness of impermanence. This concept deeply shaped the overall structure and emotional logic of 1kbps. It informed the pacing of the animations, the selection of imagery, and even the user’s sensory experience. Rather than building toward a conclusion, the piece suspends viewers in a state of becoming, where beauty emerges in brief appearances, then dissolves. Mono-no-aware is not simply a theme in this work, but a method of composing time itself: to let the ephemeral be felt before it fades. The awareness of transience, the gentle sadness of impermanence. The textile designs already carried this spirit. I tried to bring it into a screen-based space, where slowness rarely survives. In a world where technology accelerates our actions, 1kbps invites us to slow our perception. Not to delay progress, but to offer a place where we might still feel time as something we live through, not consume.

Danish Cobra artist Asger Jorn once wrote, “Reality is what we can observe.” For him, perception was not passive—it was how we shape the present. 1kbps holds onto this idea. The interface becomes not just a delivery system, but a sensory space. It offers no answers, only atmosphere. No outcome, only presence. It asks you to stay. To witness something before it arrives. To linger, even if nothing happens. And maybe that’s the point. In a culture where information is immediate and frictionless, 1 kbps resists. It is a homepage made of hesitation. A contemplation in code. A quiet protest against a world that has no patience left for the in-between. This sensibility echoes the spirit of mono-no-aware, which runs through the work like a pulse.