The auteurist state amid unfolding digital futures

Abstract

Efforts to transform urbanisation processes highlight the state's pivotal role in shaping unfolding digital futures. Datta and Hoefsloot propose the concept of the state as auteur to underscore the significance of time and the imperative of timing as a performative, strategic, anticipatory, and symbolic practice of the state to project, direct, execute, accelerate, and synchronise circulating technological ideals. In this commentary, I introduce three attributes – time essence, time thicket, and time passage – to further emphasise the centrality of time and timing for the auteurist state in the digital age. Finally, I interrogate what the state as auteur framework might overlook, particularly given that Southern digital futures emerge through multiple open-ended and incomplete essences, thickets, and passages of time.