Machinic time spans a large range, from microseconds to seconds into the timeframe perceivable by human beings. It is variable and open to design preferences. Machinic time is the time type scientists and engineers operate in when optimizing time resources. Furthermore, machinic time is the lowest order time type accessible to and modifiable in the electronic arts. Artists work in the machinic time domain when they build a sensor that reacts to the touch of the user, when they chose to dissolve an image before loading a next one, when they design motors to move almost imperceptibly slow, or when they add delays to an algorithm to ensure a particular behavior of a machine does not evade a user's attention.
Machinic time is an essential element in the toolbox of today's electronic artists.
Machinic time is the interface to the intangible domain of the third time vector. Perceptual time is both a function of the possibilities and limitations of our sensory organs as well as an intangible notion of multiplicity of conscious states. As such it is the antithesis of oscillatory time. It is a prolongation of the past into the future. It is duration.