Published
Oct 31, 2025
Author
Nicolás Fabian
Time, contemporaneity, and the modern consumer
Time, contemporaneity, and the modern consumer
Contemporaneity, as described by Boris Groys, is marked by a complex relationship with time. In this context, the modern consumer becomes a paradoxical figure, divided between the role of a passive receiver and that of an active agent in a world saturated with images, information, and objects. This tension between passivity and activity reflects a broader phenomenon: the constant negotiation between the ephemeral and the eternal, the disposable and the lasting. The consumer is not merely a target for messages and products, but also a co-creator of meaning and a curator of experiences.
This duality is directly linked to cultural and artistic practices that seek to emancipate the spectator, promoting a more critical and reflective relationship with the objects, images, and narratives that surround them. Yet, even within this logic of rapid obsolescence, the consumer demonstrates a capacity to subvert ephemerality through appropriation, curation, and transformation. The intentionality with which consumers engage with objects and images reveals a movement that transcends passive consumption, positioning them as central actors in the construction of value and meaning.
When we consider branding as a practice intrinsically connected to visual and material communication, it becomes evident how it amplifies and reflects the temporal complexity of consumption. Contemporary branding uses ephemerality to generate impact, yet finds in the consumer an agent who re-signifies its narratives, transforming consumption into a space of creation and resistance, and establishing a continuous dialogue between past, present, and future.
From a perspective on timelessness, Munari offers a valuable lens to rethink branding as a practice that can, and should, resist the disposable. By proposing that design, as previously mentioned, should be functional and enduring, he challenges the logic of constant renewal that often defines branding strategies. In this sense, he positions design as a mediator between market demands and the need to offer consumers something that transcends immediacy.
However, branding often moves in the opposite direction, exploiting ephemerality as a resource. Advertising campaigns are designed to capture attention quickly and powerfully, often and intentionally generating a cycle of symbolic obsolescence. This practice frequently overlooks the consumer’s potential as a co-creator of meaning. Joseph Beuys, with his notion of social sculpture, challenges this approach by proposing that every interaction is, ultimately, a joint act of creation. In the context of branding, this suggests that brands could adopt a more dialogical role, allowing consumers to contribute to the construction of narratives and value. This concept transforms branding from a unidirectional practice into a platform for co-creation, where time, in its multiple dimensions, becomes a central resource for connecting the consumer to something greater than the product itself.
By applying the concept of multiple temporalities to consumption, we can interpret it as a performative act, in which the consumer not only acquires objects and images but also re-inscribes them within personal contexts. This act of re-inscription represents resistance to the narratives imposed by the market and shows that consumption can be both a practice of conformity and of subversion.
For instance, the way contemporary consumers interact with products and brands on digital platforms creates a hybrid space between the ephemeral and the eternal. The sharing of images and the production of content by users demonstrate how they manipulate branding narratives, reinterpreting and amplifying them. In this context, the act of consumption becomes a performance, one in which time is simultaneously consumed and produced.
This performative perspective is deeply influenced by Beuys’s ideas, where the contemporary consumer’s interaction with products and narratives can be understood as an act of creation that not only consumes immediate time but also participates in its production. This dual movement, consuming and producing temporalities, reveals the malleability of time within the context of consumption.
Here, Groys’s perspective becomes essential: the present is not a transitional interval between past and future, but a space where different temporalities coexist, compete, and articulate themselves. Groys points out that the contemporary individual is one who confronts their own time, the time in which they exist, without ignoring or escaping its complexity.
In this sense, contemporary consumption cannot be reduced to immediacy or instant gratification. Every object or narrative consumed carries traces of its creation, the historical, cultural, and material contexts that shaped it while simultaneously projecting new meanings into the future as the consumer integrates it into personal experience and re-inscribes it within new contexts.
When it comes to the past, reactivation through consumption is directly linked to the continuous re-inscription of time. A product is not merely an artefact of the present; it contains layers of temporality that reflect its creation process, materials, the intentions of its designer or maker, and the cultural values that shaped its existence. For the consumer, engaging with the object means reactivating these layers and introducing them into the present. Simultaneously, consumption projects meanings into the future. This projection is not limited to the functional use of the object but involves the symbolic inscription of intentions, expectations, and values that transcend the moment of interaction.
Groys’s notion of multiple temporalities becomes particularly relevant here, as consumption transforms into an act of narrative construction, where the object becomes a bridge between different times.
Contemporaneity, as described by Boris Groys, is marked by a complex relationship with time. In this context, the modern consumer becomes a paradoxical figure, divided between the role of a passive receiver and that of an active agent in a world saturated with images, information, and objects. This tension between passivity and activity reflects a broader phenomenon: the constant negotiation between the ephemeral and the eternal, the disposable and the lasting. The consumer is not merely a target for messages and products, but also a co-creator of meaning and a curator of experiences.
This duality is directly linked to cultural and artistic practices that seek to emancipate the spectator, promoting a more critical and reflective relationship with the objects, images, and narratives that surround them. Yet, even within this logic of rapid obsolescence, the consumer demonstrates a capacity to subvert ephemerality through appropriation, curation, and transformation. The intentionality with which consumers engage with objects and images reveals a movement that transcends passive consumption, positioning them as central actors in the construction of value and meaning.
When we consider branding as a practice intrinsically connected to visual and material communication, it becomes evident how it amplifies and reflects the temporal complexity of consumption. Contemporary branding uses ephemerality to generate impact, yet finds in the consumer an agent who re-signifies its narratives, transforming consumption into a space of creation and resistance, and establishing a continuous dialogue between past, present, and future.
From a perspective on timelessness, Munari offers a valuable lens to rethink branding as a practice that can, and should, resist the disposable. By proposing that design, as previously mentioned, should be functional and enduring, he challenges the logic of constant renewal that often defines branding strategies. In this sense, he positions design as a mediator between market demands and the need to offer consumers something that transcends immediacy.
However, branding often moves in the opposite direction, exploiting ephemerality as a resource. Advertising campaigns are designed to capture attention quickly and powerfully, often and intentionally generating a cycle of symbolic obsolescence. This practice frequently overlooks the consumer’s potential as a co-creator of meaning. Joseph Beuys, with his notion of social sculpture, challenges this approach by proposing that every interaction is, ultimately, a joint act of creation. In the context of branding, this suggests that brands could adopt a more dialogical role, allowing consumers to contribute to the construction of narratives and value. This concept transforms branding from a unidirectional practice into a platform for co-creation, where time, in its multiple dimensions, becomes a central resource for connecting the consumer to something greater than the product itself.
By applying the concept of multiple temporalities to consumption, we can interpret it as a performative act, in which the consumer not only acquires objects and images but also re-inscribes them within personal contexts. This act of re-inscription represents resistance to the narratives imposed by the market and shows that consumption can be both a practice of conformity and of subversion.
For instance, the way contemporary consumers interact with products and brands on digital platforms creates a hybrid space between the ephemeral and the eternal. The sharing of images and the production of content by users demonstrate how they manipulate branding narratives, reinterpreting and amplifying them. In this context, the act of consumption becomes a performance, one in which time is simultaneously consumed and produced.
This performative perspective is deeply influenced by Beuys’s ideas, where the contemporary consumer’s interaction with products and narratives can be understood as an act of creation that not only consumes immediate time but also participates in its production. This dual movement, consuming and producing temporalities, reveals the malleability of time within the context of consumption.
Here, Groys’s perspective becomes essential: the present is not a transitional interval between past and future, but a space where different temporalities coexist, compete, and articulate themselves. Groys points out that the contemporary individual is one who confronts their own time, the time in which they exist, without ignoring or escaping its complexity.
In this sense, contemporary consumption cannot be reduced to immediacy or instant gratification. Every object or narrative consumed carries traces of its creation, the historical, cultural, and material contexts that shaped it while simultaneously projecting new meanings into the future as the consumer integrates it into personal experience and re-inscribes it within new contexts.
When it comes to the past, reactivation through consumption is directly linked to the continuous re-inscription of time. A product is not merely an artefact of the present; it contains layers of temporality that reflect its creation process, materials, the intentions of its designer or maker, and the cultural values that shaped its existence. For the consumer, engaging with the object means reactivating these layers and introducing them into the present. Simultaneously, consumption projects meanings into the future. This projection is not limited to the functional use of the object but involves the symbolic inscription of intentions, expectations, and values that transcend the moment of interaction.
Groys’s notion of multiple temporalities becomes particularly relevant here, as consumption transforms into an act of narrative construction, where the object becomes a bridge between different times.
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