Infrastructures of Time: An Introduction to Hardwired Temporalities

Abstract

The introductory essay to the volume proposes a framework for understanding the transformative and disruptive effects of digital time. It argues for a multiscalar approach to the layers of temporality active in current media infrastructures, which coordinate different magnitudes of time from the microtemporal to the longue durée. Situating the phenomenon of digital time within a trajectory of increasing materialization of temporal relations, it provides a historical account of the becoming concrete in technology of what were once relations between people and objects.