Times change, and so does the perception of time. The temporal model of a society determines its relationship with reality or, rather, it outlines its own inherent reality. “A certain perception of time can promise or inhibit a revolution, make one feel at home and in tune with the rhythms of the earth, or lost and unmoored in a vast and complex universe” (Amy Ireland). In this talk moderated by Federico Fernández Giordano (https://edicionesholobionte.com), Armen Avanessian and Federica Matelli will illustrate new complex planetary forms of a time that leaps out of modernity through its different scales, directions, rhythms and technologies with the purpose of understanding how time is mutating—and mutating us. Has phenomenological time come to an end? Does time no longer come from inside or from the past, but from outside and from the future?

Federica Matelli: «Xeno-time. Distortions of time after postmodernity »

In recent years, the various theories of accelerationism have reconsidered our relationship with time and temporality, shifting the role of the human being in the face of an avalanche of new technological, geological, non-human or “artificial” temporalities. These non-human temporalities relocate us in a more complex panorama, leading us to a scenario of “twisted times”, as the philosopher Nick Land has put it, and “temporal anomalies” such as those of “science fiction”. We are facing a new conception of temporality that moves away from the phenomenological paradigm related to the transcendental structures of human sensibility, which was inaugurated by Kant more than two centuries ago and has marked modernity. Without attempting to be exhaustive, we will travel in time or, rather, in the times of post-post-modernity: Armen Avanessian amb Suhail Malik’s “time-complex”, Amy Ireland’s “secessionist time”, Quentin Meillassoux’s “ancestral time”, Diann Bauer’s “xenotemporality” and Land’s “teleoplexy”. Time no longer comes from the past, but from the future. Time is not only internal, but also external. It is xeno-time, a strange time, an in-human time.

Armen Avanessian: «Planetary Time Complex»

Building on earlier reflections on the technologically induced temporal complexity of our culture, I will address the question of a specifically planetary time (which goes beyond established cultural or political conceptions of global time). To begin with, our entry into the age of the planetary is related to two events. Firstly, an increasing penetration and coverage of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere with an arsenal of sensors, measuring devices and satellites, whose data sets can only be processed by artificial intelligences—what has been described as an awareness of the planet. Secondly (among other things under the influence of astrobiological research into exoplanets), a temporal serialization of the planets or a temporally serialized understanding of the changeability of our planet “Earth”. Drawing from a current book project I am working on with Daniel Falb, I will then discuss related topics and consequences such as hyperanticipation, biographical big history and habitability-escalation.

Federica Matelli is a researcher, professor and independent curator. She has published in a variety of media and languages and lectures at several institutions and universities. She has a PhD in Theory and History of Contemporary Art from the University of Barcelona and a degree in Philosophy (Aesthetics) from the University of Pisa (Italy). She is currently an adjunct professor of the Fine Arts degree at BAU, Barcelona University Centre for Arts and Design, and an associate doctor of the research groups GREDITS (BAU) and AGI. Art, Globalization and Interculturality (University of Barcelona). Website: https://federicamatelli.wixsite.com/federicamatelli.

Armen Avanessian is a philosopher and professor of Media Theory at Zeppelin University (Friedrichshafen). His works, some translated into several languages, include: Irony and the Logic of Modernity (2015), Speculative Drawing (with Andreas Töpfer, 2014), Present Tense. A Poetics (with Anke Hennig, 2015), Metanoia. A Speculative Ontology of Language, Thinking, and the Brain (with Anke Hennig, 2017), Overwrite. Ethics of Knowledge – Poetics of Existence (2017), Miamification (2017) and Future Metaphysics (2019). Recent publications: One plus One. Spekulative Poetik von Feminismus, Algorithmik, Politik und Kapital (with Anke Hennig, 2019) and Konflikt. Von der Dringlichkeit, die Probleme von morgen schon heute zu lösen (2022).

Federico Fernández Giordano: A translator, editor and founder of the avant-garde philosophy publishing house Holobionte Ediciones. https://edicionesholobionte.com