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Abstract
This article takes off from what Lyotard calls 'the immaterial', demonstrated in the exhibition Les Immatériaux that he curated at the Centre Pompidou in 1985. It aims at outlining a concept of 'relational materiality'. According to Lyotard, 'the immaterial' is not contrary to material: instead, it is a new industrial material brought about by telecommunication technologies, exemplified by Minitel computers, and serves as basis to describe the postmodern condition. Today this materiality is often referred to as 'the digital'. In order to enter into a dialogue with Lytoard, and to render his notion of 'immaterial materials' contemporary, this article contrasts the concept of relational materiality with some current discourses on digital physics (Edward Fredkin, Gregory Chaitin) and digital textuality (Matthew Kirschenbaum). Against the conventional conception that relations are immaterial (neither being a res nor even having a real esse), and also contrary to a substantialist analysis of materiality, this article suggests that a relational materiality is made visible and explicit under digital conditions. It suggests a reconsideration of the 'relational turn' in the early 20th century and the concept of concretisation proposed by Gilbert Simondon. The article concludes by returning to Lyotard's notion of materialism and his vision of a new metaphysics coming out of this 'immaterial material', and offers 'relational materialism' as a contemporary response.

Outline of an investigation on digital objects -- Objects -- The genesis of digital objects -- Digital objects and ontologies -- Relations -- The space of networks -- The time of technical systems -- Logics -- Logic and object -- Logic and time

In 1985, the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard curated a groundbreaking exhibition called Les Immatériaux at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition showed how telecommunication technologies were beginning to impact every aspect of life. At the same time, it was a material demonstration of what Lyotard called the post-modern condition. This book features a previously unpublished report by Jean-François Lyotard on the conception of Les Immatériaux and its relation to postmodernity. Reviewing the historical significance of the exhibition, his text is accompanied by twelve contemporary meditations. The philosophers, art historians, and artists analyse this important moment in the history of media and theory, and reflect on the new material conditions brought about by digital technologies in the last 30 years.

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Infrastructures of Time: An Introduction to Hardwired Temporalities -- Part I Media Philosophies of Time Patterning -- 1. The Suspension of Irreversibility: The Fundamental (and Futile) Task of Media -- 2. Time and Technology: The Temporalities of Care -- 3. Problems of Temporality in the Digital Epoch -- 4. Suspending the "Time Domain" : Technological Tempor(e)alities of Media Infrastructures -- Part II Microtimes -- 5. Infrastructuring Leap Seconds : The Regime of Temporal Plurality in Digitally Networked Media -- 6. Life at the Femtosecond -- 7. Artificial Intelligence and the Temporality of Machine Images -- 8. Intervals of Intervention : Micro- Decisions and the Temporal Autonomy of Self-Driving Cars -- Part III Lifetimes -- 9. Grounded Speed and the Soft Temporality of Network Infrastructure -- 10. Unruly Bodies of Code in Time -- 11. Screwed: Anxiety and the Digital Ends of Anticipation -- 12. Beep: Listening to the Digital Watch -- Part IV Futures -- 13. Captured Time: Eye Tracking and the Attention Economy -- 14. Ahead of Time : The Infrastructure of Amazon's Anticipatory Shipping Method -- 15. Artificial Neural Networks, Postdigital Infrastructures and the Politics of Temporality -- 16. Technics of Time: Values in Future Internet Development -- Index