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In a way, everybody is wounded from the wound of the real. This phenomenon is similar to madness. The mad person is wounded by his or her distorted relationship to the real.

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
Relationship
Distorted
Everybody
Wound
Persons
Wounded
Person
Similar
Real
Phenomenon
Way
Mad
Wounds
Madness

More quotes by Paul Virilio

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I believe that the politics of intervention and the Kosovo war prompted a fresh resumption of the arms race worldwide.
Paul Virilio
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I believe that philosophy is part of literature, and not the reverse.
Paul Virilio
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In industrialized warfare, where the representation of events outstripped the presentation of facts, the image was starting to gain sway over the object, time over space. Soon a conflict of strategic and political interpretation would ensue, with radio and then radar completing the picture.
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You cannot dissociate birth from death, creation from destruction, good from evil. Thus any art is a form of drama standing between the two extreme poles of birth and death, just like life is drama. This is not sad, because to be alive means to be mortal, to pass through.
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Concepts are mental 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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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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The body has a dimension of simulation. The learning process, for instance: when one learns how to drive a car or a van, once in the van, one feels completely lost. But then, once you have learnt how to drive, the whole van is in your body. It is integrated into your body.
Paul Virilio
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World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.
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For the US, GPS are a form of sovereignty! It is hardly surprising, then, that the EU has proposed its own GPS in order to be able to localize and to compete with the American GPS.
Paul Virilio
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War was my university. Everything has proceeded from there.
Paul Virilio
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However, the Kosovo War took place in orbital space. In other words, war now takes place in 'aero-electro-magnetic space'. It is equivalent to the birth of a new type of flotilla, a home fleet, of a new type of naval power, but in orbital space!
Paul Virilio
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The creation of a virtual image is a form of accident. This explains why virtual reality is a cosmic accident. It's the accident of the real.
Paul Virilio
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The atomic bomb provoked a specific accident.
Paul Virilio
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For instance, the Persian Gulf War was a miniature world war. It took place in a small geographical area. In this sense it was a local war. But it was one that made use of all the power normally reserved for global war.
Paul Virilio
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I have always been interested in the architecture of war, as can be seen in Bunker Archeology. However, at the time that I did the research for that book, I was very young. My aim was to understand the notion of 'Total War'.
Paul Virilio
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Television can only destroy.
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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Art has become more than painting, sculpture or music: art is more than Van Gogh painting a landscape or Wagner composing an opera. The whole of reality itself has become the object of art.
Paul Virilio
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There is, then, a link between the logistics of perception, the wars in Lebanon and the Gulf as well as with CNN and the Pentagon.
Paul Virilio