The Vision Machine

by Paul Virilio

"Virilio offers a cool, precise look at an impending future in which reality shall simply cease to exist. Highly recommended." ―Choice

Surveying art history as well as the technologies of war and urban planning, one of France's leading intellectuals provides an introduction to a new "logistics of the image."

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Academic, Technology

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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

[Scot]

A view into how our perception of the world has been radically altered by technology and the potential ramifications of our current quest for virtual reality that come at us at the speed of light. Beginning with the advent of the gas lamps that brought day to the night in Paris in the 1800s through to the photograph, movies and now computer/digital animation, Virilio warns that this may create a crack in reality that is beyond our ability to control.

This quote from Jean-Pierre Vernant seems to sum it up, "To behold the Gorgon you must look into her eyes and when your eyes meet, you cease being yourself, cease living and become, like her, a power of death."

To add to the irony of life, I read this book on an electronic device...

[Andreas Risager]

Virilio is a hard man to understand. While the book is short, it's meaning is grand. Sometimes it seems like gospel, other times like ramble. I was tiptoing between 3 and 4-stars, but ended on four - the fault is properply on my shoulders for not understanding every part of the book.

The Vision Machine (Synsmaskinen // la machine de vision) is a work about pictures, and vision. How what we previece define our world. And while it might seem dated, since we today have SoMe and way more screens with pictures and "moving pictures" I think that makes the book all the more relevant.

A short relevant read. I read the danish translation from Rævens Sorte Bibliotek, translated by Orla Vigsø & Niels Brügger, and it gets the job done, with a nice list of wierd words in the back.

The part that stuck with me is on the first page: Art wants to be perceived. I'd say the same is true for the world as a whole.

[Joe]

Simply one of the best reads about culture since the Enlightenment era to now. Some of the propositions that Virilio makes inspired me to think past how I saw process art and conceptual art notably in terms of how I can contribute to the the process of art work of story/photography.

[Marius Bremmer]

Mweh. Ramble ramble brr brrrrr. Sum interesting grains within. Mweh

[Casey Robertson]

“With topographical memory, one could speak of generations of vision and even visual heredity from one generation to the next. The advent of the logistics of perception and its renewed vectors of delocalizing geometrical optics, on the contrary, ushered in a eugenics of sight, a preemptive abortion of the diversity of mental images, of the swarm of image-beings doomed to remain unborn, no longer to see the light of day anywhere”

A book from 1994 that anticipates the very condition we live with today, Virilio takes on the ocularcentric problems that emerge in a moment of rapidly proliferating images. Incredibly cogent and aware of what is at stake.

[Ric Hayman]

A lot to take in, and in such a small book … information dense; had to read the first chapter twice, but worth it

[Obada]

هذا الكتاب ليس لي

[Giulio]

Nella versione italiana edita "Sugarco Edizioni"
- La macchina che vede. L’automazione della percezione;

[Megan]

It was definitely interesting and thought-provoking, but I think I would have gotten more out of it if I understood half of the references Virillio makes (That's not the book's fault though). I would recommend reading it with Wikipedia open.

[Peyman Gh]

دارم ترجمه اش میکنم. از ویریلیو تا حالا متنی تو به فارسی کار نشده

[Imad]

i wnat to read this book

[Jacob]

https://twitter.com/JacobVangeest/sta...