George Dyson (US) will kick off the festival with a keynote lecture about time in the digital universe: No Time is There: Why the Digital Universe is Different From Ours.

The digital universe–now growing by more than 5 trillion bits per second–goes back to a 32-by-32-by-40-bit matrix that took form in 1946. “Decisions between elementary alternatives, and enforcement of these decisions are initiated not with reference to time as an independent variable but rather according to sequence,” Julian Bigelow, the architect of this 5-kilobyte matrix, explained in 1949 – before it was customary to refer to these elementary alternatives as bits. “Time, therefore, does not serve as an index for the location of information,” he added, “but instead counter readings are used.” Because these counters have come to be known as clocks, it is easy to believe that time in the digital universe is equivalent to time in our universe – but nothing could be further from the truth.

This lecture is organised in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum as part of Temporary Stedelijk 3. It can be visited separately from the conference and the festival.