Constant reactive media time blocks the continuous time shadows need and forces repetition

Evidence

It is imperative that we carve out some spaces beyond the hyper-bright instant. This instant is insomniac, amnesiac; it locks us into a reactive time, which is always full (of outrage and pseudo-novelty). There is no continuous time in which shadows can grow, only a time that is simultaneously seamless (without gaps: there is always “new” content streaming in) and discontinuous (each new compulsion makes us forget what preceded it). The result is a mechanical and unacknowledged repetition. Is it still possible for us to cultivate shadows? — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1772

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with Fisher’s broader account of hauntology and lost futures; ‘mechanical and unacknowledged repetition’ connects to his critique of capitalist realism’s stalled temporality.
• SEED: The shadow-and-time principle by Lovink/Olma/Rossiter is a ready essay angle on attention ecology and creative slowness versus frantic immediacy.
• DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that contemporary time is simultaneously seamless and discontinuous, and that this yields repetition rather than novelty, is a genuinely sharp diagnostic claim worth sitting with.