Time Signatures and Imaginative Possibilities
Art and Technology in Dialogue
Queens University, Belfast. 23-24 October 2026
Full-time
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Conference dinner
Frame
Both art and technology have been treated with caution by philosophers. Each is credited with either a surfeit of influence on human behaviour or as operating at a remove from reality (Plato), their development conceptualised as inherently teleological (Hegel). Although often placed in opposition in discussions of authenticity (Heidegger), history has shown the boundary between art and technology to be porous (McCluhan, Bataille). In our present moment, both art and technology have been framed as the solutions to and heralds of a series of crises: of attention, of political will and of the climate, among others.
Paradoxically, the depth of these crises suggests that tackling them will take time, even as ‘time is running out’ has become a ubiquitous refrain. Here, art might operate as an instructive case. Philosophers have identified how works of art often inaugurate their own temporalities (leisure or festival time) (Arendt, Gadamer), while also acting as crucial reminders of our own finitude (Aristotle) or important connections to communities beyond ourselves (Nussbaum). Emerging technologies also exist in this tension. AI agents often exhibit their inhumanity by treating time as a variable rather than an inhabited duration (Bergson), while LLMs offer us new ways to encounter and understand untranslated artefacts. Both AI and social media offer new means of connection and the opportunity of offloading the mundane tasks which otherwise occupy humans’ time.
Although the efficiencies of technology might suggest greater time for the imaginative processes of art making or interpreting, critical theorists have highlighted the short circuit between increased free time and the extension of ‘work’ via the redirection of human attention (Adorno, Horkheimer). This, in turn, raises the question of the limits of both art and technology as forces of change embedded in wider political and economic systems (Fisher).
Art and technology operate simultaneously as stimulators of the imagination and manifestations of the creative imagination. Developments in technology create new ways to make and reproduce art with democratising and displacing effects (Benjamin). Although technology is framed in popular discourse as a threat to the imagination (Anders), its influence on art and art-making has opened up new possibilities for moral imagining and empathy through photography, (Sontag) film (Cavell), and television (Laugier). Technology has, in recent times, been understood as of necessity a self-creative power, challenging human-centric accounts of creativity as a process reliant on human imagination (Leroi-Gourhan, Harraway, Stigler). Engaging with the narratives of other humans and of non-human entities through immersive experiences or poetic representations has been suggested as a way of displacing anthropocentric worldviews (MacFarlane) through a challenge to the imagination- a faculty positioned as both human (Kant) and as the access point to the more-than-human, the mystical or the transcendent (Weil, Thacker). Yet imagination can be seen as a capacity possessed by non-human entities, ideas and processes, including technology itself.
Art in the form of literature and cinema, particularly sci-fi, is often the forum in which we explore our fear or optimism about future effects of rapid technological advancement, often presented as dystopia or utopia (Land, Jameson, Huxley, Blanchot). The forging, fostering and sheltering of new social imaginaries (Marcuse), through art, literature (Murdoch, Greene) and online communities and sub-cultures such as Solar Punk are often heralded as a burgeoning solution to the crises alluded to above.
Keynotes
We are delighted to have great keynote speakers for this conference:
Ciano Aydin is Full Professor of Philosophy of Technology at the University of Twente heading the Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations research line. His research focuses on “existential technology”, how technologies increasingly shape our identity, impact our freedom and responsibility, and influence different facets of our life.
Yvonne Foerster, currently Philosopher in Residence at the Institute of Advanced Studies, TU Munich, will take up a position as Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Galway in the Autumn. Her research centres around the question of how humans and machines shape each other, what it mean to embody technology, and how this influences everyday life.
Graham Parkes is currently a Professorial Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Vienna having previously being professor of philosophy at University College Cork in Ireland. He was founder director of the Irish Institute of Japanese Studies. He works between Eastern and Western traditions addressing topics in aesthetics, climate change and interculturality.
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