What is time to a computer
2025
Performative lecture
What is time to a computer is a live-coding-based performative lecture that reflects on the gap between the perception of time by humans and computers.
The lecture is situated within a terminal emulator environment, which acts as a bridging interface between the human operator and the computer's operating system. The terminal emulator is used here as a speculative tool for exploring the operating system time wheather through system's actual hardcoded built-in information, or by fictional scripts and commands.
Using archival video snippets, custom Python scripts, images and visualisations, the lecture playfully yet critically addresses various layers of computer-time definitions and concepts, tracing digitalized time back to hardware technologies, corporations and their mostly male representatives.
The lecture unfolds in three parts. In the introductory section, an overview of various time concepts in computing is suggested and demonstrated. The second part is a chapter dedicated to time in Unix, historically the most widely used and influential operating system. In this chapter, the emergence of Unix time, also called the 'Unix epoch', is analyzed and explained, together with information about its creators. The final chapter of the lecture, titled Network Time and the Politics of Synchronization, outlines a broader socio-technical context of time in the digital realm, with a special focus on synchronization enforcement, the hierarchy of time infrastructures and their roots in military development.
Duration: approx. 25' (duration is variable)
What is time to a computer performed by Silvia Binda on May 8th 2025 at Centro de Historias in Zaragoza, Spain. Video by Nanuk Audiovisual.
What is time to a computer performed by Silvia Binda on 8 May 2025 in Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain. Photos by Pedro Anguila.
What is time to a computer performed by Silvia Binda at adaptér space in Budapest, Hungary, 15 February 2025. Photos by Novak Doro.