A theory of temporal telepresence: Reconsidering the digital time collapse

Abstract

This article focuses on the concept of ‘time collapse’ commonly used within scholarship on digital memory. Despite its intuitive appeal, I claim that the notion of a collapsed time leaves considerable room for conceptual ambiguity, which in turn hampers a deeper ethical analysis of the topic. In view of this ambiguity, the present article sets out to provide analytical rigor to, and thus unpack the ethical dimensions of, the notion of time collapse. Pursuing this goal, I introduce the concept of temporal friction, denoting informational resistance that makes moments of time perceivable as separate for an embodied epistemic agent. I argue that the concept of temporal friction offers a more flexible and precise interpretation of collapsed time, and draw on two examples – search warrants and the so-called digital remains – to illustrate its ethical significance.