Event overview
07375200417
This symposium will bring together scholars across multiple disciplines to explore the questions raised by subversions of linear chronological time in contemporary media
Inspired by the recent renewal of interest in time travel, time loops and alternative history narratives across digital platforms such as Dark (Netflix, 2017-2020), The Peripheral (Amazon Prime, 2022) Watchmen (HBO, 2019) and Lovecraft Country (HBO, 2020), as well as longer histories of resonant developments across other time based media arts including installation art and electronic music, this conference will bring together scholars from film and TV studies, contemporary art, popular music, social sciences and science and technology studies to explore the questions raised by deformations of linear chronological time in contemporary narratives.
If as Deleuze suggests it is the chronic, or chronological time that causes suffering, what resistant or therapeutic potentials might be offered by non chronological modes of temporality?
A key question in this regard will be whether links can be constructed between the rich legacies of Afrofuturist challenges to Eurocentric temporalities such as John Akomfrah and Edward George’s Black Audio Film Collective work The Last Angel of History (1996) or the more recent Black Quantum Futurism collective’s ‘quantum’ interventions into linear time, with the cultural implications of quantum physics as seen for example in the work of Karen Barad and feminist New Materialism, as well as with popular cultural depictions of quantum temporal deformations.
These synergies may be partial, incomplete, and full of tension but nevertheless also highly expressive of the ongoing challenges to linear temporality of digital audiovisual platforms themselves with their abandonment of ties to any schedule or interior life of the nation-state. While all fictional narratives could be considered time travel machines in the sense that they transport us from the present to particular times and spaces though the deployment of different rhythms and speeds, explicit time travel or time loops make these temporal transports both perceptible and subject to multiple modulations in ways that correspond closely to digital networks themselves.
These synergies are not only aesthetic or philosophical but political as they call attention to chronological time as an agent of western imperialism and domination and attempts to unwork this domination from both inside and outside as a fundamental resource for future cultural political strategies.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Jun 2023 |
9:00am - 8:00pm Panel sessions will take place from 1000 to 1730 and a Keynote conversation between Professor Simon O'Sullivan, Dr Ayesha Hameed and Dr Henriette Gunkel will take place from 1730 to 1930 all in IGLT30 |
|
| 12 Jul 2023 |
5:00pm - 9:00pm Film screening and keynote by Professor Steven Shaviro (remote) taking place in the Curzon Cinema RHB |
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| 14 Jul 2023 |
1:00pm - 7:00pm Panel sessions will take place between 1300 and 1730 and the final Keynote by Prof Julian Henriques will take place between 1730 and 1900 all in IGLT |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
