a computational performance that stages waiting as a technical condition within a client–server system. a browser client sends repeated requests to a server. no request resolves. instead of data, the server returns error codes, delays, and partial fragments. with each failed request, a single line is retrieved from a finite set of verses. these fragments accumulate inside the browser’s developer console, gradually assembling a recursive poem that never completes. the text emerges through repetition rather than authorship. on screen, a cockroach loops endlessly around a white plate while a dense tangle of network cables encircles the monitor. software and sculpture mirror one another, forming a closed circuit of motion without progress. the work offers no spectacle. to encounter the poem, the viewer must look where attention rarely goes: into the console, into the loop.

recursive_wait reflects on how contemporary computational systems organize experience around delayed response and indeterminate resolution. rather than treating error as interruption, the work positions failure as a persistent condition through which meaning slowly accumulates. by situating the poem inside the browser’s developer console—a space typically reserved for debugging—the work shifts attention away from interfaces designed for consumption and toward infrastructural layers where systems expose their limits. waiting is framed not as empty time, but as an active state produced by protocol, repetition, and endurance.

the work operates through a minimal client–server architecture. a browser client continuously issues http requests at fixed intervals. the server is intentionally configured to never return successful responses. each request results in an error state or delay, paired with a single prewritten verse selected from a finite set. these verses are logged exclusively to the browser’s developer console rather than the visible interface. as requests accumulate, the console gradually fills with fragmented lines, forming a poem through recombination and repetition. no generative ai systems are used.