Harris, Laurel. 2003. Time, space. In Theories of Media (University of Chicago). Archived by WebCite.
Comments on this article:
'The work of French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) posits understanding as existing in the mind alone and casts doubt on experience produced through corporeal sense perception. '
Comment: To understand this sentence replace corporeal with bodily.
Comment: Important finding by Isaac Newton:
'...absolute space exists because, while objects may be moved in relation to each other, space itself cannot be moved.'
Comment: Important by Lessing on Des Cartes and Newton:
'In 1766, German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Laocoön applied the Enlightenment sensibilities of Newton and Descartes to media theory. Lessing states that pictorial representation (see drawing and painting) should strive for spatial purity and that poetry must represent time, or the changing moment.'
Laurel Harris:
'Media open and shape our experiences of time and space. Experientially, if not literally, human beings can operate on radically different time-space coordinates through media from painting to writing to film. Media also shape time and space experienced in "daily life" from forming space through architectural intervention to standardizing time to enable trade and communication. Theories of time and space, whatever their diagnosis, must account for the radical physical restructuring of time and space which has taken place over the last century. Technological developments in communications media (from the telegraph to the telephone to email), travel (the airplane), and the dissemination of information (television to the internet) are perceptually reducing and conflating the lived experience of time and space, as discussed by Harvey and McLuhan.'
Comment:
Being members of the Internet Society, are we about to loose the plot? It is true that we experience an increase of speed as we experience things happening quicker, being solved quicker and that there is a constant feeling of urgency. Things develop quicker and as a result the shear number of events happening around us almost simultaneously are simply overwhelming. As a result, I understand that the perception of time and space has changed, not time and space themselves.
Soraj Hongladarom 2002:
The Web of Time and the Dilemma of Globalization
Translation: Ephemeral - short lived / mundane - profane
Chapter Modern Conception of time: 'The invention of mechanical clocks effectively divorced time from space, whose union was the basis of the medieval con- ceptionception (Giddens, I 990, pp. 1 7—1 8). Time becomes like modern space, which is empty and is the same everywhere (Burke, 1985, p. 276). With the advent of the mechanical clock, time ceased to be exclusively connected with natural phenomena and people’s lives became connected instead with its beat (Lee & Liebenau, 2000b, p. 47). Time be- came quantified and commodified. As Appadurai (1996) points out, time itself becomes consumable, and leisure time is as much work as work itself (pp. 79—85).'
Translation: Commensurable - Acceptably measurable
'The advent of information and communication technologies has created a dramatic impact on the existing conception of time. Many computers come equipped with a connection through the Internet to one of the several provided NTP (Net Time Protocol) servers, which effectively tells the client machine the time according to the time zones set by the user. Since the time zone of the machine can be set by the user, the machine in effect does not stand in the local time zone. Instead it floats about and can belong to any time zone whatsoever. Time is completely disconnected from place, or even space. The clock in these computers is not set by referring to any locality, but is set through the network to one of the NTP servers very far away. Thus when one sets one’s watch after one of these wired computers, in effect one does not belong to the nation or the place where one happens to be in. One can be a citizen of the world itself.'
Comment: I belong to the nation of which I am a citizen. I may also accept the Internet Community as a seperate nation, making me bi-national. As this nation does not deal with borders, it is indeed a world nation. Although time zones might blurr, the sun will always stand above the earth at a certain time of day and the day will remain any equivalent of the modern standard time of 24 hours. As a result, changing the time on my clock does not change my nationality, it only changes the time zone I feel most familiar with. Further I don't think anyone would deliberately change the clock from local time to any other time around the world without purpose. The most popular purpose would be to align with somebody in a different time zone.
World time could be measured from the dateline in the Pacific, adding 24 hours separated by longitude slots of 15°. This would certaily create confusion with the traditional conception of time that regards Greenich (UK) as the centre of modern time, but it would ceretainly make sure it is noon, where the sun is in its zenith. Wherever we are in the world, our time is measured either Greenich time plus up to 12 hours or minus 12 hours.
Translation: Modicum = Minimum
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