Grounded Speed and the Soft Temporality of Network Infrastructure

Abstract

This chapter offers a descriptive view of cable temporality from the perspective of network operators and those involved in system maintenance and repair. Examining the “soft temporalities” of these operators’ labor, the chapter illustrates a tension at the heart of media’s infrastructures: in many places, slowness, stability, embeddedness, and fixity of infrastructures are what enable speed and acceleration. After describing the “grounded speed” of the cable network, the chapter turns to the phenomemon of temporal irruptions: moments when the assemblage of temporal processes that enable network operation and network speed suddenly and radically changes the network.