The Aesthetics of Disappearance

by Paul Virilio, Philip Beitchman (Translator)

Virilio himself referred to his 1980 work The Aesthetics of Disappearance as a "juncture" in his thinking, one at which he brought his focus onto the logistics of perception -- a logistics he would soon come to refer to as the "vision machine." If Speed and Politics established Virilio as the inaugural -- and still consummate -- theorist of "dromology" (the theory of speed and the society it defines), The Aesthetics of Disappearance introduced his understanding of "picnolepsy" -- the epileptic state of consciousness produced by speed, or rather, the consciousness invented by the subject through its very absence: the gaps, glitches, and speed bumps lacing through and defining it. Speed and Politics defined the society of speed; The Aesthetics of Disappearance defines what it feels like to live in the society of speed."I always write with images," Virilio has claimed, and this statement is nowhere better illustrated than with The Aesthetics of Disappearance. Moving from the movie theater to the freeway, and from Craig Breedlove's attainment of terrifying speed in a rocket-power car to the immobility of Howard Hughes in his dark room atop the Desert Inn, Virilio himself jump cuts from such disparate reference points as Fred Astaire, Franz Liszt, and Adolf Loos to Dostoyevsky, Paul Morand, and Aldous Huxley. In its extension of the "aesthetics of disappearance" to war, film, and politics, this book paved the way to Virilio's follow-up: the celebrated study, War and Cinema.This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Crary, one of the leading theorists of modern visual culture.Foreign Agents series. Distributed for Semiotext(e)

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Art, Technology, Sociology, France

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Paul Virilio was 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.

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been several years since I read this book and it made such a strong impact on me that I can remember where I was and what the temperature was like when I read it (and the book is about these sorts of placements in time). I remember being on the train reading it when someone told me that Michael Jackson had died.

The best way I can reflect on the way Virilio dissects time is to take the example of dropping a coffee cup (this is a broad paraphrase): when we drop a cup, we may take this as an accident or exception, but what we should really find exceptional is this illusion of continuity that we generally take for granted. It's odd actually that we're ever able to string all these moments together and *not* drop the cup.

Virilio's analysis of Howard Hughes, of the perception of time that can take shape in aviation and constant film-viewing, is one of the most sympathetic portraits of obsession I have ever read. It calls our definitions of madness into question by illuminating the complexity of the structures that we have to keep in place to agree that we're sane.

Beautifully written. Early in the text - Some issues with gender in Virilio's explanation of picnolepsy need to be read through to the end of the chapter and taken in context.

[Alana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The people in town planning are reading the whole of Virilio’s oeuvre with dismay. “Fuck… he’s on to us.”

He sorta nailed the metaphysics of Ballard’s Crash without mentioning it even once? He does mention everyone else though. You name it, Howard Hughes, polar explorers, the suffragettes, nuclear technicians, various guys from the 12th to the 16th century. I believe that is everyone? All of history flickering by, totally out of order, and compressed into a single instant. Machine replacing lover, speed replacing destination, collision becoming caress as the visuality of speed syncopates with the subject’s disappearance. The subject has learnt to desire their own oblivion. Escaping beyond the speed of light is the new kink they just dropped. First intermittent. Then present. Reversed and in slow motion. It is heating up now. The sound is now gone. All else goes missing. Present again, ad infinitum but nowhere to be found.

[Orlando Quevedo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Virilio tiene una idea que me parece brillante. Su primer acercamiento a la ausencia parte de los momentos en que desconectamos por completo, como cuando desayunamos y nos quedamos mirando a la nada.
Lo interesante aquí es que no interpreta la ausencia como distracción. La distracción más bien sería entendida como el momento negativo de la concentración, y eso es ya verla de manera reaccionaria. Virilio ve más bien en esa ausencia un disparador de creatividad. ¿Pero qué tiene esto de genial? Que detrás de esas breves ausencias hay relaciones con el tiempo no mediadas por dispositivos. Es muy distinto distraerse y quedar ausente scrolleando, momento en el q somos consumidores de las redes, a quedar ausente mientras caminamos y de pronto empezar a divagar, idear, cuestionar nuestra vida, etc. Pareciera algo muy menor, pero encuentro esto sumamente creativo en el sentido de que esas ausencias están muy relacionadas con la idea de "instaurar un ambiente".
Agustín J. Valle, en Jamás tan cerca, se cuestiona sobre cómo relacionarnos con el tiempo cuando la temporalidad de las redes nos acecha continuamente. Estamos conectados con el mundo a través de historias y publicaciones, dejando de lado el espacio más proximo a nuestro cuerpo, es decir, el aquí.
Virilio, con la ausencia creativa, da un cómo para relacionarse con el tiempo fuera del tiempo mediático o de las telecomunicaciones, es decir, con el aquí. Ya no se trata entonces de buscar hacer cosas muy complejas para ir en contra de nuestra relación con el tiempo mediático que nos aleja del aquí. Se trata de buscar las condiciones que posibiliten la emergencia de la ausencia creativa, condiciones que podemos tener a la mano (como caminar en el parque sin celular) y abandonarnos a nosotros mismos sabiendo que los momentos de ausencia llegarán -siempre llegan-, y vivirlas de la manera más afirmativa posible, no como distracciones, sino como una manera de relacionarnos con el aquí y el ahora.
Lo que llega con las ausencias está muy relacionado con las cosas que ya de antemano nos rodean. En los momentos de ausencia pensamos y nos cuestionamos mucho sobre nuestro devenir, sobre nuestros proyectos, etc, etc, y he ahí donde Virilio encuentra un punto de afirmación de la existencia no mediada por los dispositivos de control. Claro, estos momentos son, creo yo, en tanto momentos de soledad, mucho más ricos si se tiene un aparato conceptual con el cual relacionarnos con las ideas que se presentan en las ausencias. Pero tampoco es que lo valioso en las ausencias sean solo las ideas. Hay sensaciones y otro tipo de afectos que tienen su valor y tal.
Eso solo es la primera parte del libro. Virilio de ahí pasa a otros temas que ya no me llaman tanto la atención, además de tener una escritura que me parece desordenadisima, y de no tener una estructura clara de las ideas que expone. El primer capítulo, donde habla de la ausencia, me pareció bellísimo. El resto, meh.
Aguante escribir como el orto.

[Sandra]

A perfect example of how to abuse scientific terminology to the point of absurdity in a really dull and meandering manner. I think we should just collectively end cultural theory. It had a good run.

[Javier Rouco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bof

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I’m sure that the form of this book is somehow supposed to reflect his theories of speed and disappearance, it makes for an inconsistent and highly unfocused book, hopping around examples and ideas while never embellishing on any of them. If the whole book was supposed to evoke some kind of emotional response, it only left me with dissatisfaction. I’m under the impression his earlier stuff is more cohesive and takes time to properly address the interesting concepts he has introduced.

[Bernardo Moreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belíssimo livro.
Apesar do estilo ensaístico ser um pouco nauseante no início, logo me acostumei com as associações a-centradas de Virilio. A beleza de seu texto está propriamente nas articulações de temas, episódios, exemplos e anedotas as quais ele mobiliza.
Este livro é sobre a velocidade. Mas também sobre a técnica, a óptica, o cinema, a aceleração, a aniquilação do tempo e do espaço; um panorama da experiência visual da modernidade tardia.

[Gulliver's Bad Trip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virilio has that rare kind of erudition, like Borges on his essays, amongst other few, which allows him to make ancient/medieval remarks and soon relate it to modern/contemporaneous allusions. This book like maybe his other former ones may seem outdated due the Cold War context and conclusion but most of it is still quite understandable if you actually read him and his fellow philosopher Baudrillard. A great read after his Speed and Politcs.

[Ida · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eins der Bücher, die nicht nur schwer zu bewerten sind, sondern auch beinahe unmöglich, andren ein Bild davon zu schildern, denn vor allem ist es eins von der Sorte, von der jeder je nach Lebenserfahrungen und -perspektiven ein eigenes Bild macht und sich damit anders auseinander setzt.

[nonegloga]

L’uomo auto-accecandosi costruisce il suo doppio, il suo spettro intelligente e affida la tesaurizzazione del suo sapere ad un riflesso. Siamo nella sfera dell’illusione cinematica, del miraggio dell’informazione che si precipita nello schermo di un computer – dove esiste certo l’informazione ma non la sensazione –, siamo di fronte all’apatheia, quell’impassibilità scientifica in nome della quale quanto più l’uomo è informato tanto più si estende intorno a lui il deserto del mondo, tanto più la ripetizione dell’informazione (già fruita) disturba gli stimoli dell’osservazione, precedendoli automaticamente non solo nella memoria (luce interna) ma anche nello sguardo, al punto che ormai la velocità della luce limita persino la lettura dell’informazione, mentre l’elemento fondamentale nell’elettronica-informatica non è più la conservazione ma la visualizzazione.

[ayman · Rating 4 out of 5]

randomly stumbled across a pdf for this and i was really intrigued by the concept. i've never read any paul virilio nor have i really read much books on cultural theory yet i found this captivating at times. virilio's prose can be hard to follow and the writing here definitely requires a couple re-reads but the concepts here are really thought provoking.

visual politics across different contexts; absence as a whole separate world operating with a "different logic." i feel the concept of absence to be a consoling feeling.

"with speed, the world keeps on coming at us."

[Catarina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it’s a matter of taste, sensibility, or simply differences in discipline and training, but I found the book too scattered, full of digressions and generalizations. Not a single point was interesting to me, and some were frankly irritating, such as the description of abortion as “le meurtre accompli comme sous-produit de l’amour.” Thoughts about speed and machines and etc also didn't age well. Definitely not for me.

[laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good enough elaboration on the institution of time / technical assaults on human presence starting with cinema. However the chapters were motley not very easy to keep hold of his main thesis of each. He moves between literary analysis, techniques of film and photography, real life, etc, too sneakily. Its muddling

I like this quote
“The pursuit of form is just the technical pursuit of time” 🔥

[Micaela]

"...the internment of bodies is no longer in the cinematic cell of travel but in a cell outside of time, which would be an electronic terminal where we'd leave it up to the instruments to organize our most intimate vital rhythms, without ever changing position ourselves, the authority of electronic automatism reducing our will to zero...somehow the vision of light moving on a screen would have replaced all personal movement."

[Mario Ramirez-Arrazola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than speed and politics I think. Virilios’s writing is still a bit hard to follow here but his ideas are so good and prophetic that he makes up for it. His writing antics are very obvious after reading only two of his works. I like these shorter works a lot but yea definitely not as in depth as some would hope I guess

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most Virilio books this starts off convoluted and then makes more sense once you get over half way. I’ll be honest this time I had to take a break because the organization was sparse. Glad I finished it because it tied back together well at the end. He’s critiquing the whole idea of focus and his style is more than just laziness or lack of refinement. It’s more about speed than disappearance, I don’t like that title. The visual perceptual parallel with the concept of entropic speed as we go further into the instability of late stage capitalism is brilliant. It sets him apart from Baudrillard who is awkwardly similar in many other ways.

[Chrystyphyr · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not understand most of this one

[Sophie]

not incomprehensible but incredibly tangential and meandering. still, maybe it beats s&p..

[KDnas · Rating 5 out of 5]

extrañamente me ha gustao mucho. generalmente cuando juntan el tipo de filosofía q roza el espiritismo con ciencia me parece vendehumismo, pero este libro es increíble, osea cosas muy bien traídas

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Aesthetics of Disappearance forces a hard question: Paul Virilio asks whether we are actually building our own lives or just following a pre-approved cultural checklist.

[Kristina | Lectora sin libros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Encontré este libro en la biblioteca de casualidad y sólo por el título lo presté. No leí su sinopsis pero sí el primer párrafo. Ya sé qué no vuelvo hacer con ciertos títulos y ciertas temáticas.
Este libro es como la reunión de un montón de cosas que de algún modo están relacionadas con la desaparición, es decir, esa ausencia o vacío que hay entre un instante de la vida y otro.
Puede empezar con la epilepsia y terminar hablando de la velocidad de los automóviles, pasar por la ciencia ficción y rematar con el amor.
Muchas cosas no las comprendí, más bien me entretuvieron y estuve vagando entre párrafos. Uno no sabía muy bien a dónde iba pero avanzaba.

[Dr. Derek Woodgate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a big Virilio fan, so enjoying the book so far. I seem to have come across references to George Melies more frequently in the past six months than in the previous decade. Thank you Hugo. The annihilation of time and speed is an interesting concept ripe for debate in the context of speed and society and our reconfiguration of speed beyond the acceptable metrics. Virilio's attempt to use the world of aesthetics as a playground for analyzing the revolutionizing speed of life looks to make for a fun ride.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to Lost Dimension, The Aesthetics of Disappearance explores how modernity’s emphasis on speed negatively impacts human relationships with the surrounding world. While good, the book does blur together with some of Virilio’s other work.

[Anna]

Would also like to get the new edition of this.

[Cameron Kunzelman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly focused enough. Meandering Virilio is the worst kind of Virilio.