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01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 136

136 Consuming Media

The representation of the past and the future in the present is a central concern for
Benjamin’s reflections on time and history. As first pointed out by St Augustine, the
human conception of the present is actually threefold, since it also harbours the pres-
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ence of the past and of the future. The present is threefold, combining the now of
the past (memoria), the now of the current (attentio) and the now of the becoming
(expectatio). It holds together three directions of time, equivalent to the capacity of
the human mind to have memories (of the past), be attentive (to the present) and
have expectations (of the future). History and its future course are always seen from
the horizon of the ongoing present. Even if historical time works as a ‘third time’ that
bridges the dualism between concrete and abstract time, it is thus itself fettered to an
ever passing and ongoing present; or ‘filled by the presence of the now’, as Benjamin
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writes. Therefore, history is always a construction, albeit not a totally arbitrary one,
and every representation of it becomes a ‘text written in invisible ink’. 26 One way of
making this ink more visible is to look at how history is used and works in the
present. Benjamin hoped to accomplish this by making the ‘thirst for the past’ of the
modernity of the nineteenth century the ‘principle object’ of his Arcades Project. 27
This ‘thirst’ is still present in contemporary modernity, not least in consumption and
the media.
Before turning to this subject, the main time layers can be depicted as in Figure
8.1.

Abstract time

Past Historical time Future

Memories Corporeal time Expectations
Attention

Concrete time

FIG. 8.1 Layers of time.

Media are related to different time layers in contemporary modernity. Their rela-
tionship to time is further complicated by the fact that they both structure and are
being structured by time. This two-directed process of structuring is at the heart of
the human conception of abstract or universal time, as the clock could be regarded
as its basic medium. But the most important temporal function of contemporary
media in a more narrow sense is to mediate between abstract and concrete time. This
makes the modern notion of time dualistic and heterogeneous, so that different kinds
of ‘time arrows’ criss-cross each other in late-modern everyday life. Abstract time,
conceived as ‘real’ or ‘natural’ time, has the character of a straight linear ‘time arrow’
pointing to the future, while concrete time – the time inscribed in the social order of
action – though having the same irreversible linear character, is punctuated by