Paul Virilio

aims at the retrieval of those hidden layers of bodily experience and perception in the world.

Above all, Virilio's endeavour aims at the retrieval of those hidden layers of bodily experience and perception which he describes in relation to his work as a painter and which he affirmed in his thinking as an urbanist. He wishes to 'rediscover touch, the touch of walking . . . all the signs of another divergence, of a return to the physical, to matter, the signs of a rematerialisation of the body and of the world' (Virilio 1999: 49).

is above all interested in space and movement, and in the way in which geopolitics and geostrategy are shaped by spatial organization and vectors of movement through space.

As this study has indicated from the very beginning, Virilio is above all interested in space and movement, and, when it comes to politics, he is above all interested in geopolitics and geostrategy in so far as it is shaped by spatial organization and vectors of movement through space (Armitage 2001: 173). p.90

is interested not in mathematical abstraction, but rather in shapes, figures and forms.

From his earliest days, Virilio asserts, he was 'resistant to the formulas of mathematics but open to the figures of geometry and geography' (Virilio 2005a: 26). As a painter, and in particular as a painter of still life, he is interested, not in mathematical abstraction, but rather in shapes, figures and forms. Virilio expresses this in the following terms: 'Figures always spoke to me . . . I found shapes all around me expressive' (Virilio 2005a: 26).

is concerned with how temporal and spatial organization shapes our individual and collective apprehension of time and space.

If speed is a key idea for Virilio this is perhaps because he is more fundamentally concerned with temporal and spatial organization and the way in which relative movement, that is, both acceleration and deceleration, shapes our individual and collective apprehension of time and space.

is pessimistic about technology because his thought retains a profound attachment to, and affirmation of, the notion of the situated body and of the material spatiality of lived, embodied experience.

If Virilio's writing can at times appear apocalyptic or over-pessimistic, it is because his analysis is deeply rooted in a certain strand of phenomenological thought which retains a profound attachment to, and affirmation of, the notion of the situated body and of the material spatiality of lived, embodied experience p.65

is concerned with offering an account of speed's negative impact on the shaping of perception and of social or political space.

In 'The Founding Manifesto of Futurism' (1909) F. W. Marinetti (1876–1944) asserted that modernity could be defined as an age of speed and proclaimed: 'Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed' (Apollonio 1973: 22). Yet far from celebrating speed in the manner of Marinetti, Virilio's dromology offers a sustained account of its negative impact on the shaping of perception and of social or political space. p.46

is a reader of reality. A Master of reading the real; not an analyst in this area but rather a creator.

Rather his writing orientates itself primarily around the question of vision and seeing. This, as has been shown, is inseparable from the question of the body's situatedness, and from the way it moves through space. It is inseparable also from the codes, forms or habits which structure everyday perception. Claude Parent, Virilio's collaborator on the review Architecture principe, describes the man and his work in the following terms: Paul Virilio is a reader of reality. A Master of reading the real, he is not an analyst in this area but rather a creator. In the present he tracks down the future. He sorts, he chooses, he gathers together; in his hands the most minute indicators are pieces of evidence which overturn the hierarchy of the present; he is an archaeologist of the future. (Architecture Principe, 6, September–October 1966, in Virilio and Parent 1996)

is an archaeologist of the future. In the present he tracks down the future.

Paul Virilio, n.Definitions

Paul Virilio