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That night I went to see the the excellent film Arrival. The plot of the film is the attempt by Dr Louise Banks, a linguist enlisted by the US military, to try and communicate with an alien landing and find out their purpose for landing on earth. One of the theme's of the film is non-linear communication, specifically the Hetapod's (alien) gift of a language that affects the perception of time, allowing Dr Banks to see into the future.
This got me thinking about contemporaneity and digital communication. Horologically, the rally in DC took place 5 hours behind my time but the ability to access a live stream meant that I could see all of the speakers in the present. Despite it being daylight on the broadcast and dark outside here in the UK it still felt like I was watching the present not the past. Pretty much the same sensation I have when I Skype my sister. In this context, time may be inconsequential, those of us, who wanted to, were able to participate in some way in an activity that was taking place in a different time and thousands of miles away. Of course since the invention of telecommunications that can stretch long distances, like the telegraph, we have been able to communicate with people in different time zones, but does the medium or communication tools have an impact on our perception of the present. Did the combination of the real time broadcast and the synchronous communication, with my fellow women marching activists, as I stood cooking in my P-Hat in the kitchen, have an impact of my perception of the present.
I have recently become interested in Neuroscience, as a way of trying to explain some of my perceptions of the world that cannot be explained sociologically. Closely linked to this are philosophical studies of temporality. For example, I cannot seem explain sociolgically. my feelings of being in the present with my fellow women marching across the world last Saturday.
Tim Barker's paper Media In and Out of Time: Multi-temporality and the Technical Conditions of Comeporaneity (what an excellent title!) - investigates how contemporary media culture creates a "phenomological experience of being in multiple times, in the present but also in the past and future". Barker goes on to say that "media technologies put their users in contact with events of the world, allowing us to engage in events closer to real time, but drawing us out of this time into other technically produced times". Referring to the aftermath of current events such as September 11, and this could possibly be applied to the in Women's March, he introduces the condition of living in a repeatable present, with contemporary culture no longer living within history but in the aftermath of repeatable large scale events.
Yvonne Förster-Beuthan's paper Conscious experience of time: its significance and interpretation in
neuroscience and philosophy. investigates the body's role in the perception of time, in the same way it does with colour. She refers to by A.D. (Bud) Craig's article Emotional moments across time: a possible neural basis for time perception in the anterior insula. Craig's explanation is that time gains its unity by proprioception.
"The insular cortex which is involved in motor control, perception, emotion, self awareness and other important cognitive processes seems to be connected to the unity of time perception. Proprioception, the constant and unthematic awareness of ones own body posture and state seems to facilitate the integration of time perception, of the flux of time. The constant feeling of being alive and being in situations." (Förster-Beuthan referring to Craig)
