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The field of vision is comparable, for me, to the terrain of an archaeological dig. To see is to be on guard, to wait for what emerges from the background, without any name, without any particular interest: what was silent will speak, what is closed will open and will take on a voice.

Paul Virilio

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Paul Virilio
Age: 86 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 4
Died: 2018
Died: September 10
Architect
Art Theorist
Exhibition Curator
Painter
Philosopher
Photographer
Sociologist
Urban Planner
Writer
Paris
France
Take
Vision
Closed
Open
Backgrounds
Names
Field
Archaeological
Waiting
Wait
Comparable
Interest
Silent
Terrain
Voice
Fields
Emerges
Speak
Particular
Guard
Without
Name
Background

More quotes by Paul Virilio

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For me, the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the war in Kosovo in 1999 are the prelude to the integral accident.
Paul Virilio
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Technologies first equipped the territorial body with bridges, aqueducts, railways, highways, airports, etc. Now that the most powerful technologies are becoming tiny - microtechnologies, all technologies can invade the body. These micro-machines will feed the body. Research is being conducted in order to create additional memory for instance.
Paul Virilio
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To someone like Zurbaran, who paints still lifes, lemons and pears are the objects of art. But to the electronics engineer who works on the technologies of virtual reality, the whole reality has become the object of art, with a possibility to substitute the virtual with the real.
Paul Virilio
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Television was first conceived to be used as some kind of telescope, not for broadcasting. Originally, Sworkin, the inventor of television, wanted to settle cameras on rockets so that it would be possible to watch the sky.
Paul Virilio
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I pursue through my research on speed and on my study of the organisation of the revolution of the means of transportation.
Paul Virilio
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Digital messages and images matter less than their instantaneous delivery the shock effect always wins out over the consideration of the informational content.
Paul Virilio
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In a way, technologies have negated the transcendental God in order to invent the machine-God. However, these two gods raise similar questions.
Paul Virilio
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The globally constituted accident can be compared to what people who work at the stock exchange call 'systemic risk'.
Paul Virilio
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Today, almost all-current technologies put the speed of light to work.
Paul Virilio
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As I have been arguing for a long time now, there is a real need not simply for a political economy of wealth but also for a political economy of speed.
Paul Virilio
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Under the Occupation, we in Nantes were denied access to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It was therefore not until after the War was over that I saw the sea for the first time, in the vicinity of St Nazaire. It was there that I discovered the bunkers.
Paul Virilio
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From the original watchtower through the anchored balloon to the reconnaissance aircraft and remote sensing-satellites, one and the same function has been indefinitely repeated, the eye's function being the function of a weapon.
Paul Virilio
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As I said back in 1984, the idea of logistics is not only about oil, about ammunitions and supplies but also about images.
Paul Virilio
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Even among the elite, in government circles, technological culture is somewhat deficient.
Paul Virilio
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Jean Baudrillard is a friend of mine, I do not agree with him on that one! For me, the significance of the war in Kosovo was that it was a war that moved into space.
Paul Virilio
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There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.
Paul Virilio
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Thus it is no longer a Caesar or a Napoleon who decides on the fate of any particular war but a piece of software! In short, the political intelligence of war and the political intelligence of society no longer penetrate the techno-scientific world.
Paul Virilio
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Despite the economic disaster that is Russia, there are still air shows taking place in the country.
Paul Virilio
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Whoever controls the territory possesses it.
Paul Virilio
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The thing about collaborators is that you don't know you are one whereas as a member of the resistance, you do. [In WWII,] the worst cases of collaboration weren't among the real collaborators, that official militia, but among the people at large, who were collaborators without knowing it, by a sort of laxity, an apathy.
Paul Virilio