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03/11/2011 10:30
Articles: a020
Date Published: 12/1/1994
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Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, Editors
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CTHEORY: But surely the commodification of the accident happened before television through
simulation?
Virilio: To start with, the simulator is an object in itself, which is different from televison and leads
to cyberspace. The US Air Force flight simulator - the first sophisticated simulators were created by
the US Air Force - has been used in order to save gas on real flights by training pilots on the
ground. Thus there is a cyberspace vision: one doesn't fly in real space, one creates a poor
cyberspace, with headphones, etc...it is a different logic. In a way, the simulator is closer to
cyberspace than televison. It creates a different world. So, of course, the simulator quickly became
a simulator of accidents, but not only that: it started simulating actual flight hours, and these hours
have been counted as real hours to evaluate the experience of pilots. Simulated flight hours and
real flight hours became equivalent, and this was cyberspace, not the accident but something else,
or rather the accident of reality. What is accidented is reality. Virtuality will destroy reality. So, it's
some kind of accident, but an accident of a very different nature.
The accident is not the accident. For instance, if I let this glass fall, is it an accident? No, it's the
reality of the glass that is accidented, not the glass itself. The glass is certainly broken and no
longer exists, but with a flight simulator, what is accidented is the reality of the glass, and not the
glass itself: what is accidented is the reality of the whole world. Cyberspace is an accident of the
real. Virtual reality is the accident of reality itself.
CTHEORY: But then simulation doesn't really pretend to be the glass?
Virilio: This is a little hard to explain. We have a sense of reality which is sustained by a physical
sensation. Right now, I am holding a bottle: this is reality. With a data glove, I could hold a virtual
bottle. Cybersex is similar: it is an accident of sexual reality, perhaps the most extraordinary
accident, but still an accident. I would be tempted to say: the accident is shifting. It no longer
occurs in matter, but in light or in images. A Cyberspace is a light-show. Thus, the accident is in
light, not in matter. The creation of a virtual image is a form of accident. This explains why virtual
reality is a cosmic accident. It's the accident of the real.
I disagree with my friend Baudrillard on the subject of simulation. To the word simulation, I prefer
the one substitution. This is a real glass, this is no simulation. When I hold a virtual glass with a
data glove, this is no simulation, but substitution. Here lies the big difference between Baudrillard
and myself: I don't believe in simulationism, I believe that the word is already old-fashioned. As I
see it, new technologies are substituting a virtual reality for an actual reality. And this is more than a
phase: it's a definite change. We are entering a world where there won't be one but two realities,
just like we have two eyes or hear bass and treble tones, just like we now have stereoscopy and
stereophony: there will be two realities: the actual, and the virtual. Thus there is no simulation, but
substitution. Reality has become symmetrical. The splitting of reality in two parts is a considerable
event which goes far beyond simulation.
CTHEORY: What about early cinema as a primitive form of this, when people left the cinema in
fright?
Virilio: Unlike Serge Daney or Deleuze, I think that cinema and television have nothing in common.
There is a breaking point between photography and cinema on the one hand and television and
virtual reality on the other hand. The simulator is the stage in-between television and virtual reality,
a moment, a phase. The simulator is a moment that leads to cyberspace, that is to say, to the
process because of which we now have two bottles instead of one. I might not see this virtual
bottle, but I can feel it. It is settled within reality. This explains why the word virtual reality is more
important than the word cyberspace, which is more poetic. As far as gender is concerned, there are
now two men and two women, real and virtual. People make fun of cybersex, but it's really
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now two men and two women, real and virtual. People make fun of cybersex, but it's really
something to take into account: it is a drama, a split of the human being! The human being can now
be changed into some kind of spectrum or ghost who has sex at a distance. That is really scary
because what used to be the most intimate and the most important relationship to reality is being
split. This is no simulation but the coexistence of two separate worlds. One day the virtual world
might win over the real world.
These new technologies try to make virtual reality more powerful than actual reality, which is the
true accident. The day when virtual reality becomes more powerful than reality will be the day of
the big accident. Mankind never experienced such an extraordinary accident.
CTHEORY: What is your own feeling about that?
Virilio: I'm not scared, just interested.
This is drama. Art is drama. Any relationship to art is also a relationship to death. Creation exists
only in regard to destruction. Creation is against destruction. You cannot dissociate birth from
death, creation from destruction, good from evil. Thus any art is a form of drama standing between
the two extreme poles of birth and death, just like life is drama. This is not sad, because to be alive
means to be mortal, to pass through. And art is alive because it is mortal. Except that now, art has
become more than painting, sculpture or music: art is more than Van Gogh painting a landscape or
Wagner composing an opera. The whole of reality itself has become the object of art. To someone
like Zurbaran, who paints still lifes, lemons and pears are the objects of art. But to the electronics
engineer who works on the technologies of virtual reality, the whole reality has become the object
of art, with a possibility to substitute the virtual with the real.
CTHEORY: Is there a transcendence of the body?
Virilio: That is difficult to say. First, what is under consideration is not only the body itself, but the
environment of the body as well. The notion of transcendence is a complex one, but it is true that
there is something divine in this new technology. The research on cyberspace is a quest for God.
To be God. To be here and there. For example, when I say: "I'm looking at you, I can see you", that
means: "I can see you because I can't see what is behind you: I see you through the frame I am
drawing. I can't see inside you". If I could see you from beneath or from behind, I would be God. I
can see you because my back and my sides are blind. One can't even imagine what it would be
like to see inside people.
The technologies of virtual reality are attempting to make us see from beneath, from inside, from
behind...as if we were God. I am a Christian, and even though I know we are talking about
metaphysics and not about religion, I must say that cyberspace is acting like God and deals with
the idea of God who is, sees and hears everything.
CTHEORY: What will happen when virtual reality takes the upper hand?
Virilio: It already has. If you look at the Gulf War or new military technologies, they are moving
towards cyberwars. Most video-technologies and technologies of simulation have been used for
war. For example, video was created after the Second World War in order to radio-control planes
and aircraft carriers. Thus video came with the war. It took twenty years before it became a means
of expression for artists. Similarly, television was first conceived to be used as some kind of
telescope, not for broadcasting. Originally, Sworkin, the inventor of television, wanted to settle
cameras on rockets so that it would be possible to watch the sky.
CTHEORY: So it was only by a matter of degrees that the Gulf War became the 'virtual war', it was
live broadcasting that really effected this change?
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When you find yourself in the middle of virtual reality, you don't know where you are, but with this
machine, you can know. This watch has been used for ships and not only can it tell you where you
are, but also it can tell others where you are: it works in the two ways. The question you're asking is
really interesting. For one can't even know what it means to be lost in reality. For instance, it is easy
to know whether you are lost or not in the Sahara desert, but to be lost in reality! This is much more
complex! Since there are two realities, how can we say where we are? We are far away from
simulation, we have reached substitution! I believe this is, all in the same time, a fantastic, a very
scary and an extraordinary world.
CTHEORY: But to return to this question of transcendance...
Virilio: All in all, I believe that this divine dimension raises the question of transcendance, that is to
say the question of the Judeo-Christian God for instance. People agree to say that it is rationality
and science which have eliminated what is called magic and religion. But ultimately, the ironic
outcome of this techno-scientific development is a renewed need for the idea of God. Many people
question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to
Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies
converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God. In a way,
technologies have negated the transcendental God in order to invent the machine-God. However,
these two gods raise similar questions.
As you can see, we are still within the museum of accidents. That's a huge, cosmic accident, and
television, which made reality explode, is part of it. I agree with what Einstein used to say about the
three bombs: there are three bombs. The first one is the atomic bomb, which disintegrates reality,
the second one is the digital or computer bomb, which destroys the principle of reality itself - not
the actual object - and rebuilds it, and finally the third bomb is the demographic one. Some experts
have found out that in five thousand years from now, the weight of the population will be heavier
than the weight of the planet. That means that humanity will constitute a planet of its own!
CTHEORY: Do you always separate the body from technology?
Virilio: No. The body is extremely important to me, because it is a planet. For instance, if you
compare Earth and an astronomer, you will see that the man is a planet. There is a very interesting
Jewish proverb that says: "If you save one man, you save the world: That's a reverse version of the
idea of the Messiah: one man can save the world, but to save a man is to save the world. The
world and man are identical. This is why racism is the most stupid thing in the world.
You are a universe, and so am I; we are four universes here. And there are millions of others
around us. Thus the body is not simply the combination of dance, muscles, body-building, strength
and sex: it is a universe. What brought me to Christianity is Incarnation, not Ressurection. Because
Man is God, and God is Man, the world is nothing but the world of Man - or Woman. So, to
separate mind from body doesn't make any sense. To a materialist, matter is essential: a stone is a
stone, a mountain is a mountain, water is water and earth is earth. As far as I am concerned, I am a
materialist of the body, which means that the body is the basis of all my work.
To me, dance is an extraordinary thing, more extraordinary than most people usually think. Dance
preceded writing, speaking and music. When mute people speak their body language, it is true
speaking rather than handicap, this is the first word and the first writing. Thus to me, the body is
fundamental. The body, and the territory of course, for there cannot be an animal body without a
territorial body: three bodies are grafted over each other: the territorial body - the planet, the social
body - the couple, and the animal body - you and me. And technology splits this unity, leaving us
without a sense of where we are. This, too, is de-realization.
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There is a buddhist proverb which I like a lot. It says: "Every body deserves mercy". That means
that every body is holy. This is to answer the body question.
Technologies first equipped the territorial body with bridges, aqueducts, railways, highways,
airports, etc..Now that the most powerful technologies are becoming tiny - microtechnologies, all
technologies can invade the body. These micro-machines will feed the body. Research is being
conducted in order to create additional memory for instance. For the time being, technologies are
colonizing our body through implants. We started with human implants, but research leads us to
microtechnological implants.
The territorial body has been polluted by roads, elevators, etc. Similarly, our animal body starts
being polluted. Ecology no longer deals with water, flora, wildlife and air only. It deals with the body
itself as well. It is comparable with an invasion: technology is invading our body because of
miniaturisation. (Referring to the interviewer's microphone: "next time you come you won't even ask
- you'll just throw a bit of dust on the table!")
There is a great science-fiction short story, it's too bad I can't remember the name of its author, in
which a camera has been invented which can be carried by flakes of snow. Cameras are
inseminated into artificial snow which is dropped by planes, and when the snow falls, there are
eyes everywhere. There is no blind spot left.
CTHEORY: But what shall we dream of when everything becomes visible?
Virilio: We'll dream of being blind. This is the art of the engine. Art used to be painting, sculpture,
music, etc, but now, all technology has become art. Of course, this form of art is still very primitive,
but it is slowly replacing reality. This is what I call the art of the engine. For instance, when I take
the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) in France, I love watching the landscape: this landscape, as well
as works by Picasso or Klee, is art. The engine makes the art of the engine. Wim Wenders made
road movies, but what is the engine of a road movie? It's a car, like in Paris Texas. Dromoscopy.
Now all we have to do to enter the realm of art is to take a car. Many engines made History.
CTHEORY: Finally to return to the accident! Is it possible to see the body itself as a simulator?
(Within medical aerospace research, for example, the body's own accident, that of motion sickness,
can be eradicated.)
Virilio: The body has a dimension of simulation. The learning process, for instance: when one
learns how to drive a car or a van, once in the van, one feels completely lost. But then, once you
have learnt how to drive, the whole van is in your body. It is integrated into your body. Another
example: a man who pilots a Jumbo Jet will ultimately feel that the Boeing is entering his body. But
what is going on now, or should happen in one or two generations, is the disintegration of the
world. Real time 'live' technologies, cyberreality, will permit the incorporation of the world within
oneself. One will be able to read the entire world, just like during the Gulf War. And I will have
become the world. The body of the world and my body will be one. Once again, this is a divine
vision; and this is what the military are looking for. Earth is already being integrated into the
Pentagon, and the man in the Pentagon is already piloting the world war - or the Gulf War - as if he
were a captain whose huge boat would have become his own body. Thus the body simulates the
relationship to the world.
CTHEORY: Are you suggesting the human body will disappear in all senses of the word?
Virilio: We haven't reached that point yet: what I have described is the end, or a vision of the end.
What will prevail is this will to reduce the world to the point where one could possess it. All military
technologies reduce the world to nothing. And since military technologies are advanced
technologies, what they actually sketch today is the future of the civil realm. But this, too, is an
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technologies, what they actually sketch today is the future of the civil realm. But this, too, is an
accident.
When I was a young soldier, I was asked to drive a huge van while I had never driven a car. Here I
am, driving through a German village (this takes place during the occupation) and there was this
painter who had settled his ladder on the side of the street. I thought that my big van was going to
crash his ladder. That didn't happen. I just passed through.
21 October 1994
We would like to thank Magali Fowler and Rania Stesan for assistance with translation during the
interview. A very special thank you to Gildas Illien for the actual translation of the text from French
into English.
Paul Virilio is the emblematic French theorist of technology. His major works include: Pure War,
Speed and Politics, and War and Cinema: the Logistics of Perception. Two of his most recent
books are Desert Screen and The Art of The Engine.
Louise Wilson is a British artist currently living in Montreal. Her art involves site specific installations
and perfomance.
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