(0)Buffer State
- (Project type)
- Commissioned
- (Client)
- Nike SNKRS for DOLCE XOXO
- (Year)
- 2026
- (Role)
- Art Director, Experience Designer @CommonIndex
- (Fields)
- Interaction Design, Interactive Installation
Buffer State is an interactive installation by Common Index, created for Nike SNKRS’ Dolce XOXO exhibition celebrating the return of the Air Max Dolce. Borrowing its name from computing, where a buffer temporarily holds data before processing, the installation translates this condition into a physical experience of suspension: an endless loading loop between one image and the next. Built from LED screens, early-2000s webcams and exposed hardware, the structure continuously captures and transforms its surroundings. Low-resolution images, latency, compression and signal interference reshape physical reality into an unstable stream of fragments, where live transmission and digital memory begin to overlap. Rather than eliminating these technical imperfections, Buffer State absorbs them into its visual language. The installation remains open to the space around it. Visitors enter the system simply by moving through it, their presence captured, fragmented and returned across the screens in real time. What appears is never a stable representation of the present, but a continuously shifting image held somewhere between what has just happened and what is still being processed.
Originally released in 2002, the Air Max Dolce becomes a signal from a future imagined in the past. Its reappearance creates a temporal lag that extends into the installation itself, where live images are captured, delayed and degraded as they move through the system. Past and present remain simultaneously visible, suspended in the same unstable image.
Buffer State was presented at Dolce XOXO, a 12-hour exhibition and event by Nike SNKRS celebrating the return of the Air Max Dolce. Curated by Countersubject, the programme brought together emerging artists and creatives exploring the cultural and technological imaginary surrounding the shoe.
Early-2000s webcams became the eyes of the system. Connected through a custom TouchDesigner setup, they capture and process low-resolution imagery in real time, integrating the visual imperfections of obsolete hardware into a contemporary digital environment.
Across the screens, the Air Max Dolce shifts between object, image and data. ASCII graphics, animated overlays and time-stamped micrographics reference early digital interfaces, breaking the shoe into fragments of information that appear, disappear and circulate through the installation.
The audience becomes part of the installation without any deliberate interaction. Cameras register presence, proximity and movement, continuously transforming the images displayed across the structure. Rather than responding to individual commands, Buffer State evolves through the collective activity of the surrounding space.
- (Common Index Team)
- Carlotta Bacchini, Pietro Forino, Simone Restifo Pilato
- (Exhibition)
- Dolce XOXO Milan
- (Curated by)
- Countersubject
- (Event Location)
- Dropcity