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Portrait of Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio

(1932–2018) Philosopher France

181 quotes in 836 categories

Paul Virilio shows how war and information blend into one, where a blinding flash like Hiroshima becomes a recorded surface. He points out that accidents happen when we ignore danger, and that tools such as GPS turn conflict into a global time‑based story. Media, from CNN to television, reshape how we see battles.

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Paul Virilio was a philosopher from France, best known for Bunker Archaeology.

Quick Facts About Paul Virilio

Born: January 4, 1932
Died: September 10, 2018
Nationality: France
Profession: Philosopher
Notable works: Bunker Archaeology

About Paul Virilio

He is best known for his writings on how technology develops with speed and power, linking architecture, the arts, cities and the military, and he created many new terms, most famously the concept of “dromology,” which describes how speed shapes everyday life.

Awards & Honors

Q3406067 Q131140115

Quotes by Paul Virilio

Art is alive because it is mortal.

Alive

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The atomic bomb provoked a specific accident.

Accident

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“By the way, who invented Peace?”

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War is cinema, and cinema is war

Cinema

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What is accidented is reality.

Reality

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Concepts are mental images.

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Television can only destroy.

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To separate mind from body doesn't make any sense.

Body

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Now all we have to do to enter the realm of art is to take a car.

Art

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The information bomb gives rise to the integral and globally constituted accident.

Accident

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Writing is not possible without images. Yet, images don't have to be descriptive; they can be concepts.

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Today, almost all-current technologies put the speed of light to work.

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All future wars, all future accidents will be live wars and live accidents.

Accidents

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'Cyberwar' has nothing to do with the destruction brought about by bombs and grenades and so on.

Bombs

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Today, the army only occupies the territory once the war is over.

Army

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Television is a media of crisis, which means that television is a media of accidents.

Accidents

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The speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization is the speed of light.

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Digital messages and images matter less than their instantaneous delivery; the shock effect always wins out over the consideration of the informational…

Consideration

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GPS are everywhere. They are in cars. They were even in the half-tracks that, initially at least, were going to make the…

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The true problem with virtual reality is that orientation is no longer possible. We have lost our points of reference to orient…

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I pursue through my research on speed and on my study of the organisation of the revolution of the means of transportation.

Education

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Possession of territory is not primarily about laws and contracts, but first and foremost a matter of movement and circulation.

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As I said back in 1984, the idea of logistics is not only about oil, about ammunitions and supplies but also about images.

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As I have said many times before, the speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization…

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To a materialist, matter is essential: a stone is a stone, a mountain is a mountain, water is water and earth is…

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Television was first conceived to be used as some kind of telescope, not for broadcasting. Originally, Sworkin, the inventor of television, wanted…

Broadcasting

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What is going on now, or should happen in one or two generations, is the disintegration of the world. Real time 'live'…

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For example, we have developed an artistic and a literary culture. Nevertheless, the ideals of technological culture remain underdeveloped and therefore outside…

Artistic

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Look at the Intifadah in Jerusalem. One cannot understand that phenomenon, a phenomenon where people, often very young boys, are successfully harassing…

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The field of vision is comparable, for me, to the terrain of an archaeological dig. To see is to be on guard,…

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Newshounds are people with mini-video cameras, people who are continually taking pictures in the street and sending the tapes in to CNN.…

Cameras

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If you look at the Gulf War or new military technologies, they are moving towards cyberwars. Most video-technologies and technologies of simulation…

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“The achievement of star status itself would seem to be based not on talent or good looks any more, but on the…

Circuses

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“With the industrial proliferation of visual and audiovisual prostheses and unrestrained use of instantaneous-transmission equipment from earliest childhood onwards, we now routinely…

Children

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The development and deployment of drones and Cruise missiles involves the continuing development of the vision machine. Research on Cruise missiles is…

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“[Speed] ostensibly perverts the illusory order of normal perception, the order of arrival of information. What could have seemed simultaneous is diversified…

Speed

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There are three bombs. The first one is the atomic bomb, which disintegrates reality, the second one is the digital or computer…

Atomic bomb

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“The question today, then, is whether the world's populations are not close to having done with soft sciences and technologies, which still…

Biosphere

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Virtuality will destroy reality.

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Images contaminate us like viruses.

Photography

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Paul Virilio by topic

War (47) Technology (25) World (19) Reality (19) Kosovo (18) Accidents (16) Time (14) Body (14) Speed (13) Virtual reality (11) People (11) Art (11) Territory (10)