Paul Virilio (1932–2018)

Virilio's now classic book on approximately 1,500 WWII bunkers on the Atlantic Wall was first published in 1975. More than thirty years later his photographs are still powerful, celebrating the form and desolation of the concrete objects, but is is his writings on war that make this book highly recommended. A mix of research, historical interpretation, and philosophizing, the essays are brilliant but highly readable, not esoteric. It makes me want to pick up more by Virilio, an important voice when the militarization of cities is more and more a reality.… (more)

This is one of those books you’d expect to salvage out of the wreck of one of J.G. Ballard’s car crashes. There’s a lot of cool shit in here, but I’d be lying if I said I comprehended it in its entirety.

War-time is spreading into ‘peace’-time via the medium of speed, in this work Virilio attempts to map out this phenomena in a dromological analysis that spans centuries. From the immobile fortress to the mobile, implosive fortresses of tanks, jeeps etc. every technological advancement seems to be based entirely around the acceleration of speed. This tendency isn’t restricted to the military realm either, as athletes (what Virilio takes to be a kind of peace-time simulation of warfare) push records so far that the speeds recorded require technology to measure them. The advances seem meagre when they come down to milliseconds, there are no longer great leaps. Same goes for fast cars and many other commodities held by the gaze of society. It’s funny to think that Hitler curbed revolutionary fervour in the early 1930’s by promising the population Volkswagen cars that had not yet been manufactured, every citizen becomes their own projectile that must be restricted via speed limits, road signs etc. (a curbing and tunnelling of libido via these networks of roads).

This phenomena is being ratcheted up to such an extent on the global, geopolitical scale that the principle of deterrence that was brought about with the inception of nuclear weaponry has been twisted into a principle of automaton. There is no longer time to deliberate over political action as the earth’s vectors become entirely fluid and deterritorialised (a situation that was borne out of the naval warfare of bygone eras) and the ability to react to impending attacks (peace talks of USSR-US at SALT I based around staving off a warning time of just one minute in regard to nuclear attack). The only way to stop this is to curb the enemies’ movement by making them piss their little panties.

This was a big ramble. There’s some more stuff about calling ancient general’s homosexuals and the motive behind the creation of prosthetics as maintaining speeds in the World Wars, as well as stuff on proletariat soldiers. The book’s pretty tight though, don’t let my incoherence dissuade you from checking it out.… (more)

Interessantes ensaios pensando a guerra nos balcãs, em 1999, e as mudanças nas estratégias de guerra em meio a um contexto geopolítico renovado. Reflexões sobre desdobramentos que uma guerra informacional pode ter, em meio a estratégias de dissolução e de combate à distância, em que mais do que tudo, são as populações que são feitas reféns, os militares cada vez mais protegidos. Enfatiza a mudança para um cenário em que o poder, por ser potencialmente imenso, não deve ser exercido diretamente, e as consequências hegemonistas para os anos circundantes e seguintes (com a posição de liderança dos Estados Unidos).… (more)