Virilio: vision machines
Paul Virilio, still one of the most significant French cultural theorists writing today, is an essayist with a special interest in urbanism and the strategic implications of new technologies. For Paul Virilio, hypermodernity is played out via the cinema screen through immersive moments of accelerated vision. Images are ‘loaded weapons'. The cinema projector functions as a ‘vector of acceleration’. The speed at which these images are projected, at 24 frames per second, disrupts perception. Awareness is only perceived after the event has occurred like the affects of an explosion. Virilio draws a correlation between cinematic illusion and the mirage of information replicated on a computer screen. This simulation of information without the embodiment of sensation only manifests the paradox of being everywhere yet nowhere. Readings : Armitage, J. 2001. Virilio live: Selected interviews . Sage. Cronin, J. 2011. Excavating the future: taking an 'archaeological' approach to techno...