See you many times!
The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age. For every phase of its development the clock is both the outstanding fact and the typical symbol of the machine: even today no other machine is so ubiquitous.
Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1934
One evening, my uncle and I sat in our courtyard in Jendouba in northwestern Tunisia, talking about our homeland. In Tunisia, “we got our independence in 1956,” I said. He abruptly shot me a stern look, almost as if by reflex, before retorting, “1956… that’s a French date!”
Meryem-Bahia Arfaoui., Time and the Colonial State, 2021
This trimester will be dedicated to researching the entanglement that binds together digital technologies with time, an inquiry that opens up as many philosophical questions as much as it offers material and practical examples.
Everyday digital and electronic devices are fundamentally bound to a time-sensitive and time-critical mode of existence: they are controlled by many temporal rhythms precisely regulated and counted: the gigahertz cycles of processors in computers and smartphones, the milliseconds it takes a data packet to bring its message to its destination, the refresh rate of a screen calibrated to human perception...
This relationship works in both directions: as much as computation and processes are regulated by time intervals, the task of precise timekeeping itself has long been delegated to machines. This circular dependency needs material grounding: electrons and bits do not keep time in themselves, and need a physical materialization.
From the atomic clocks, the hyper-precise devices that measure time by observing the alteration of matter at the nuclear level, to the quartz crystals that are necessary for precise time measurement and time functioning in any electronic circuit or computer, matter is always entangled in this recursive relation between electronic functioning and time regulation.
While these sound like very scientific and technical matters, at the same time the question of time management is a very social and political one, that contributes to define the industrial and post-industrial societies and economies we live and work in. Regulating the societal relation to time is an operation charged with governmental aspects, so we won't shy away to understand how and when it happens.
People
This Issue is guest edited by Martino Morandi and Imane B. K. with contributions by AV-net.
Resources
We have quite a collection of materials related to the topics of this class, books, movies, podcasts.. As we won't have time to dig into everything, we will collect materials here on the wiki as a common resource to possibly dig further.
Schedule
WEEK 1: time as material - time as rhythm - time as control system - time as perception
Monday 7 April
10-17: Special Issue Introduction
https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Monday_07_04_25_intro
WEEK 2: What happens when we refuse linear time as we know it?
Monday 14 April
10-17: We take a look at the politics of time, crip time and timezone protocols
WEEK 3: Visit to the Houweling Telecom Museum
Tuesday 22 April
10-17: The morning will be dedicated to re-tracing the history of communication and time regulation in one of its location in Rotterdam. We will visit the Houweling Telecommuseum situated in the old telephone central in Rotterdam Noord. In this location where a century ago time was officially regulated for the whole city, we will encounter early examples of networks latency and communication rhythms, find out how information started traveling at the speed of light and how machines used to keep time.
https://pad.xpub.nl/p/22042025
May Vacation
☼ There won't be class on Monday 28th of April and Monday 5th of May ☼
WEEK 4
Monday 12 May
10-17: Together with AV-net we will engage with the minerality of electronics and their extractive logistics, following minerals and crystal straight into everyday devices. Why are quartz, cobalt, manganese, copper and many other elements necessary for the digital to exist, and what does it mean from an environmental point of view? By taking apart e-waste, examining the material traces of obsolescence and extraction, we will try to reconnect the super long times of crystal formation and waste disposal with the micro-times of computation.
WEEK 5
Monday 19 May
10.30-17.30: Following up on the mineral inquiries from our last session, today we will consider extraction and extractivism, or the type of world organization necessary to produce electronic and digital devices. We'll do so watching the movie "Ancestral Clouds Ancestral Claims" by Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, that unfolds these questions starting from the point of view of the routes that minerals take, like Lithium in the Atacama desert in Chile for instance.
WEEK 6
Monday 26 May
10-17: Special Issue with Imane B.K. where she will guide us through a cyber witching session inspired by dream circles to construct a collective intention for the final days of the special issue.
WEEK 7
Tuesday 3 June
10-17: Special Issue with visit to the A&M Metal and Electronics Recycling facility in the port of Rotterdam!
We will accompany the screening with a reading from the introduction of the book "This System is Killing Us" by Xander Dunlap that maps out degrowth and anti-capitalist struggle as the political path to address the damages of extractivism.
JUNE VACATION
☼ There won't be class on Monday 9th of June ☼
WEEK 8
Monday 16 June
10-17: Special Issue: Preparing for the presentation day
WEEK 9
Monday 23 June
10-17: Special Issue: Preparing for the presentation day
WEEK 10
Monday 30 June
10-17: Special Issue: Setting up for the presentation @@@@@
Tuesday 1 July
Final presentation of the students at the Houweling Telecommuseum from 13:30 to 17:00