Forms and Styles of Commands

The project takes as its point of departure the thesis that commands – viewed as cultural techniques whose goal is their physical or mechanical implementation – model time. Commands often operate as a contraction of time, which may even appear to strive to eliminate time, but equally they can seek to extend the time between the issuing of the command and its performance. 

The project’s goal is to develop a theory of commands that is grounded in sensory and media history, which will provide a framework for the description and comparison of these time-modelling processes. It focuses on three areas: military and bureaucratic organisation, the rearing and training of children and animals, and programming machines.