Golden Wave in the Sun

 

A Tribute to Paul Virilio

The Brooklyn Rail is proud to host a panel discussion and film screening in honor of Paul Virilio's (1932-2018) life and the influence his work has had on a generation of thinkers. The evening will begin with a rare screening of the short film "Itineraries of Catastrophe" – a conversation between Virilio and Sylvère Lotringer. The panel, moderated by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) and will include McKenzie Wark, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, and David Levi Strauss, with introductions by Nichols Goodeve.

 

Paul Virilio's "The Last Vehicle"

 

Adiitional reading: Mark Lacy, on 20 September 2018. 

Paul Virilio (1932 – 2018)

Paul Virilio passed away on the 18th of September 2018 at the age of 86. In this piece, Mark Lacy reflects on his life, work and contemporary relevance.

The Oblique of the Tribe of Dan

The tribe of Dan, from which the hero Samson came, migrated north in the Land of Israel and settled in the area near Sidon. There it connected with the gentiles of the sea and became a tribe of sailors. From there, according to one tradition, it continued in a northwesterly direction, becoming part of the Greek tribes, also called "Danaides". It continued wandering in this direction along the Dnieper River, reaching as far as Denmark. All of these places contain the syllable "Dan" in their names.

"Oblique" is also an important geometric concept in modern architecture. It notes a design compromise between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the urban space. The world is today one global city, run virtually in the speed of light, by the electronic media.

Ukraine, along which the Dnieper River flows, is also on a political "Oblique", as an intermediate state between East and West.

The danger in this geographical-political-war Oblique for the State of Israel is its inevitable lengthening towards Lebanon, Syria, the Gulf states and Iran.

Oblique of Dan

Blueberry Hill song, 12 Monkeys movie and Vladimir Putin's performance

The essence of the promise of stability, prosperity and security is at the mercy of science and human intelligence. If something still got out of hand, it was because someone was probably negligent, did not perform his task properly, did not turn in time to the appropriate expert - a phenomenon known in modern language as "failure" that requires investigation and examination.

In his book "The Critical Space", the French philosopher Paul Virilio described in detail the striving of rational-scientific thinking to achieve control in the world of phenomena with a tendency to control even the uncontrollable. But capturing the great promise of technology and science will, in his view, lead to an "integral accident" that will not only change the human perception of technology but may even bring an end to the "modern project."

Of course, Virilio did not wish for such an "accident" but warned against it: as great as the promise is, so is the depth of the crisis. Indeed, modern man's expectations of science and the state find themselves repeatedly battered in the face of defiant reality. This time, in the Russia-Ukraine war, we are not just facing a "global accident".