Abstract: Time was always an important concern and tool in capitalism and in studies of its history. This paper suggests that we approach Innovation documents as timing devices and that we study such documents in their intimate exchanges with other material-semiotic tools that work upon biological organisms.
Drawing on the cod-farming experiment, the paper aims to demonstrate how a bio-economy is being enacted by way of such timing devices, which in so doing becomes crucially involved in valuation work. It points to how such efforts may indeed fail and how living organisms may defy such interventions.
Acknowledging this may alert us to the work it takes to have nature-objects – organisms that go by their own rhythms – become part of our economies: time is about not only social time but also different and distinct nature-times. It may also alert us to the fact that life is not always a productive force and may defy our efforts of biocapitalizing.