Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio (born 1932) is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military.

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• The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call 'the information bomb' associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. Thus, in the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.
  • From Ctheory Interview With Paul Virilio 'The Kosovo War Took Place In Orbital Space: Paul Virilio in Conversation with John Armitage'
• Images contaminate us like viruses.
  • Quote used in Manic Street Preachers song Kevin Carter video.
• Time is not something that can be measured with a pendule. Time is something that we build together within a tribe, a family, a region.
• When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution... Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.
  • Politics of the Very Worst, New York: Semiotext(e), 1999, p. 89