On both the micro scale of signal processing and the macro scale of human experience, the concept of time has become one of the central topics around which critical discussions of media and technology revolve. Social geographers such as David Harvey (1990) have given us a picture of an increasingly shrinking globe, where developments such as the horse and cart, the jet engine, the telephone and new communications technology have resulted in drastically new experiences of time.

Les cycles naturels et les mouvements des astres ont été les premiers repères temporels de l’espèce humaine.