Temporalities of AI

Conference

Public event without registration
Inizio: 17.04.2026 11:00
Fine: 21.04.2026 16:00
Relatore: Conference
Luogo: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome and online
Contatto: katja.hackstein@biblhertz.it

What are the temporalities of neural networks? How do machines encode time, and how do they structure our experience of time? What are the consequences of a neural network’s attempt to simulate temporal and historical ways of being? This conference, hosted by the Machine Visual Culture research group, suggests temporality as the fil rouge to pierce through the disparate levels at which critical AI intervenes; from infrastructures to neural architectures, from crowdworkers to latent spaces. The temporal is at the heart of critiques around, for instance, labour-time in training data (Malevé, Pasquinelli), the historical situatedness of AI models (Offert, Heuser), modes of temporal existence in LLMs, alongside other foundational accounts of computational media (Stiegler, Ernst).

Bringing together researchers and practitioners from disparate disciplines and timezones, this conference develops these questions across six sessions spanning artistic practice, philosophy of the moving image, media theory, visual studies, and critical AI. Contributions address generative AI in audio and video, narratology and large language models, cross-modal temporal structures, neural models of history, the accelerationist logics of contemporary AI, and the temporalities of labour, infrastructure, and extraction. The programme moves from the microtemporal to the historical, from the theoretical to the technical, seeking to surface a layered account of AI as a temporal medium. The conference takes place in a one-day hybrid session in Rome and followed by two online-only days.

After the conference, given very strong interest in the topic, the Machine Visual Culture group will host a monthly one-hour open seminar on the topic.

For updates about the conference and follow-up seminar, including Zoom links, please sign up here: https://groups.google.com/g/temporalities-of-ai/about

SPEAKERS:
Emanuele Andreoli / Mitra Azar (Independent Researcher), Daniela Cotimbo (Re:humanism), Alessandra Vailati (Independent Scholar), Audrey Borowski (University of Cambridge), Eryk Salvaggio (University of Cambridge), Gioacchino Orsenigo (Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento), Prudence Castelot (Filmatters), Jens Schröter (University of Bonn), Alexander Gerner (Universidade Lusófona), Dasha Simons, Sal Hagen and Louis Ravn (University of Amsterdam), Sabino Di Chio (University of Bari), Rebecca Uliasz (Case Western Reserve University), Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes (TORUS / Temporality Lab), Renzo Filinich (University of the Witwatersrand), Catherine Wieczorek (Georgia Institute of Technology), Leano Di Bello (University of Turin), Geoff Cox (London South Bank University), Nicolás Marín Bayona (UCLouvain), Yannick Nepomuk Fritz (University of Basel), Philippe Boisnard (Université Paris 8), Christopher Michlig (University of Oregon), Francesco Agnellini (Binghamton University), Nina Beguš and Ramona Naddaff (University of California, Berkeley), Leonardo Impett (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Alessandro Trevisan (University of Cambridge)

Conference Days and Times and ZOOM LINKS:

17 April 2026 11:00 - 16:00 (on site and online) : https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/7475586652?omn=61658368938
20 April 2026 11:00 - 16:20 (online only) : https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/my/b4005
21 April 2026 11:00 – 16:00 (online only) : https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/my/b4005

PROGRAM

Friday 17 April (in Person & online)
Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome

Session I: Artistic Times (11:00–13:00)

11:00–11:20 Welcome
Leonardo Impett, Eryk Salvaggio, Alessandro Trevisan (Machine Visual Culture)

11:20–11:40 Emanuele Andreoli / Mitra Azar (Independent Researcher). The Future-Anterior Temporality of Predictive AI and the Missing Half-Second: Toward a Right to Intermittence

11:40–12:00 Discussion

12:00–12:20 Daniela Cotimbo (Re:humanism). Dyschronic Machines — Temporal Ontologies in Artistic Practices.

12:20–12:40 Alessandra Vailati (Independent Scholar). Anticipation Without Future: Algorithmic Temporality in S.S. Lacuna: Prologue

12:40–13:00 Discussion

Session II: Technological Times (14:00–16:00)

14:00–14:20 Donatella della Ratta (John Cabot University). Speculative Violence: The Visual Politics of AI-Powered Authoritarianism

14:20–14:40 Eryk Salvaggio (University of Cambridge). Title TBC.

14:40–15:00 Discussion

15:20–15:40 Audrey Borowski (University of Cambridge). AI Temporality through the Lens of Jean Baudrillard

15:40–16:00 Prudence Castelot, Adrian Chuttarsing (Filmatters). Computational opticography - The film as a visual writing of movement in time.

16:00–16:30 Closing discussion

Monday 20 April (Online)

Session III: Visions of Time (11:00–13:00)

11:00–11:20 Jens Schröter (University of Bonn). AI and Abstract Time

11:20–11:40 Alexander Gerner (Universidade Lusófona). Where Does Your Hidden Temporality Lie? The Cut as Limit of Neural Network Video Systems

11:40–12:00 Discussion

12:00–12:20 Dasha Simons, Sal Hagen and Louis Ravn (University of Amsterdam). AI Timescales: Locating and Listening to the Rhythms of Deep Learning

12:20–12:40 Sabino Di Chio (University of Bari). Immediate Creation, Instant Tradition: The Temporal Stakes of Artificial Intelligence

12:40–13:00 Discussion

Session IV: Compression and Infrastructures of Time (14:00–16:00)

14:00–14:20 Rebecca Uliasz (Case Western Reserve University). Indeterminate Foundation (Models) of History

14:20–14:40 Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes (TORUS / Temporality Lab). Temporal Obscuration: How AI Systems Freeze the Past, Accelerate the Present, and Foreclose Decolonial Futures

14:40–15:00 Discussion

15:00–15:20 Renzo Filinich (University of the Witwatersrand). Unlearning the Mineral Mind: Algorithmic Shadows, Geologic Memory and the Plasticity of Intelligence

15:20–15:40 Catherine Wieczorek (Georgia Institute of Technology), Annabel Rothschild, Bard College. Dead on Arrival: Temporal Mismatch and Phantom Promises of AI Infrastructure

15:40–16:00 Leano Di Bello (University of Turin). BioSyntax: Cultural Time in Suspension within AI Systems

16:00–16:20 Discussion

Tuesday 21 April (Online)

Session V: Neural Models of History (11:00–13:00)

11:00–11:20 Geoff Cox (London South Bank University). AI Has No History!

11:20–11:40 Nicolás Marín Bayona (UCLouvain). Latent Times: Neural Networks, Melancholia, and the Historical Fantasy of a Timeless Other

11:40–12:00 Discussion

12:00–12:20 Yannick Nepomuk Fritz (University of Basel). Entextualization Time: Its Models and Medialities Between Human and Machine

12:20–12:40 Philippe Boisnard (Université Paris 8). Towards an Archaeology of the Computational Unconscious of the Present

12:40–13:00 Discussion

Session VI: Time in Neural Architectures (14:00–16:00)

14:00–14:20 Christopher Michlig (University of Oregon). Asleep and Dreaming: Hypersleep, Defiance, Trans-Species Capitalism, and the Myth of AI Autonomy

14:20–14:40 Francesco Agnellini (Binghamton University). Retrograde Futures: Backpropagation and the Cybernetic Temporality of Neural Networks

14:40–15:00 Discussion

15:00–15:20 Nina Beguš and Ramona Naddaff (University of California, Berkeley). Polychronic Models

15:20–15:40 Leonardo Impett, Eryk Salvaggio, Alessandro Trevisan (Machine Visual Culture). Closing Remarks

15:40–16:00 Discussion

Scientific Organization: Leonardo Impett, Eryk Salvaggio and Alessandro Trevisan

_{Image by Eryk Salvaggio}