The Italian media philosopher Franco Berardi aka Bifo recently wrote in his 'Post-Futurist Manifest' (2009) that «the omnipresent and eternal speed is already behind us, in the Internet, so we can forget its syncopated rhymes and find our own singular rhythm». During the past decade the spread of neo liberal globalisation and the revolution of information and communication technologies have led to a new temporal dynamics, both in terms of our personal lives and for society as a whole. The rise of communication networks, stretched accross time and space, has brought us to realize that clock time – the long-time regulator of our social lives – is not an absolute backdrop against which to communicate and synchronize time, but a human construction which has little to do with our experience of and in time. Contemporary science and technology have made possible a temporality which though still based upon clock time, has exploded into countless different time fractions and speeds beyond human comprehension. Today we seem to live in several time zones at the same time, propelled by a variety of internal and external time mechanisms and innumerable rhythms which continuously vibrate, resonate, connect, oscillate and disconnect. How to grasp the temporal complexity that surrounds and occupies us? What sort of ecologies of time and speed have we developed under the influence of new technologies and what is their impact on our body and senses? This conference brings together a number of international thinkers who offer new perspectives on our contemporary experience of time and speed.
Participants:
Mike Crang, Dirk de Bruyn, Charlie Gere, Steve Goodman, Carmen Leccardi, Glenn Kaino, Sybille Lammes, Stamatia Portanova, Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead, John Tomlinson.
Mike Crang (UK) is Lecturer in cultural geography at Durham University. His research is concerned with social identity and perception of space, as well as the transformation of space and time caused by electronic technologies. For years he co-edited the journal Time & Society and in 2005 he participated in the project Multispeed Cities and the Logistics of Living in the Information Age.
Dirk de Bruyn (NL/AUS) teaches animation and digital culture at Deakin University in Melbourne, Victoria. The past decades he has produced a number of films, videos and performances dealing with the feeling of trauma and disorientation. His recent research focuses on the functioning of memory systems and perception strategies in situations of sensorial excess.
Charlie Gere (UK) teaches New Media Research at the Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University and is Chair of the group ‘Computers and the History of Art’ (CHArt). He’s interested in the cultural effects and meanings of technology and media, in relation to art and philosophy. His book Art, Time and Technology (2006) explores artistic responses to the increasing speed of technological development.
Steve Goodman (UK) teaches music culture at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of East London. He runs the master “Sonic Culture” and is now working on Sonic Warfare, a theoretical research on the intersection between war and sound culture. A member of Ccru (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit), under the name of Kode9 he is a main figure in contemporary breakbeat culture.
In collaboration with the MA New Media & Digital Culture, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University. Introduction: Ann-Sophie Lehmann (Utrecht University). Moderation: Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (Virtueel Platform, Amsterdam) & Mirko Tobias Schaefer (Utrecht University)