We propose an alternative paradigm for processing time-varying visual inputs, in particular for tasks involving temporal and spatial integration, which is inspired by hypotheses about the computational role of cortical microcircuits. Since detailed knowledge about the precise structure of the microcircuit is not needed for that, it can in principle also be implemented with partially unknown or faulty analog hardware. In addition, this approach supports parallel realtime processing of time-varying visual inputs for diverse tasks, since different readouts can be trained to extract concurrently from the same microcircuit completely different information components