THE SING-ULAR TE-

MPORALI-TY by Paul

Virilio ed. A.M.J. Crawford Cheap trick allows relies on the video-performances of a lacrimal punctum of action, instantaneous diffusion. them to a-synthetic form-image resulting not only from properties of

void the question of Time, the programmer's technological ecosystems. program but also and above all electronic topology from the vector- it is a crisis of ethical and esthetic references,these form an instantaneous defilade in which matter

is replaced by retinal retention: ancient private /public occultation speed of its imbalance effectuation,

tendency to privilege information mediated The eye integrates all Thus speed becomes the soul vector for electronic representation, which has ceased to difference between “micro” and “macro” commutationto be analogical to the detriment of meaning, the theoretical This reconstruction is based on The intelligibility of elements,and also on the more-or-less grand sensibility of vectorsof displacement – especially those of ritual realityand practical importance of the notion of interface effect,drastically new telematics replaces the doorway. communicationand telecommunication, geometrical disinformation surface annuls “enlightenment.” the sensible world. in favor of the clatter of data banks and the rites of passage the crisis of the whole. problems penetrating the milieu, problems transmitting the given data. the opening of shutters and televisions. exploding of whole forms, dynamic vehicles – an almost instantaneous configuration The screen abruptlyre-transmission electronic false-day, static vehicles

became the city square, such as memorized data “vectors,” “commutations” the crossroads of allinterferometers, growing, creeping; neutralization, mass-media. no relationship whatsoever to real time. that we have ended

upa transmutilation of representations. transferring time that

occursours exposes itself instantaneously. value this displacement of direct ocular observation in favor judgments and our measureof optic equipment things from the object to its figure,a generalized delirium of interpretation.

better cinematically, is thisa synthetic space- some solar time. “surface,” cult?

since the only depth is now one passes through an audio-

that of the primitive dimension of speed, the emptiness of the exact digit/quick visual protocol that of the vector of

instantaneous transmission; it means I fly,” zero dimensionsof the data that affects, with the consciousness of the users, increasingly

conditioned by statistics, , intertia by the hidden

force a read- , the figures, deliria of automation

justment of real- the movements and the represented extension.

ity “arrives.” politics perceptions this remarkable eviction of

direct observation, we note here the practical usefulness, now onlya few monuments will do. the supreme rule of

transport machines. This elimination of immediateconsciousness of the account we could even askof the large, It is pure computer time, ourselvesof the gross as axiality if this

symbolic historic reference post-of the small, stories connected to the anthropomorphic Everyone is science busily waiting in front of some communications or telecom-unications apparatus, characteristics go first. a construction

of the observer. of threads is notsome insidious form of warfare, a pure, intellectual andconveyance of vehicles and vectors this displacement is not conceptualmnemotechnic neutral; as with all movement warfarethat is less attached to the destruction than to the de-realization of the world, human / machine inter-scientific – industrial logic supplants political – military strategy,just as that strategy, many centuries ago, supplanted the tactic

each action. Displacement the great divide of the hunter The direct observation of visible phenomena gives way to a tele-observation in which the observer has no real audiovisual technolo-

gies of retinal persistence. Immediate contact with the observed reality. the image-form of the “planetary globe.” (human, ocular, optic, opto-electronic)engages a specific speed, and this speed affects the representation under consideration and provokes a kind of rupture or severance which, while it may not be dimensional in the strict, Isn't this really a latter-day solar cult under the grandest archaic sense of the word interface, certainly has an impact on the resultant scientific observation. oscillation of

the exchange the primitive of scientific dimensional value, a cinematic jumping pretensions around, this is a matter of the degree of resolution, endlessly interpreted grandeur turned into an osmotic membrane,or, better, that of knowing the origin of time origins,misinterpreted – displaces At a given moment, in the service of exactitude,we replace the field with a mouse, the change in the notion of limitation. man became archetypes. , mouse with a fly,and so on. prospective observation, Measurement commutation: is thus

The different vectors of technical representation, displacement.Here the displaced phase is that of the observer, transformed his subscribers'

living space into a kind of global broadcast studio for world events. , rediscovering

surveyor producing the measure in the atopia of Plato's cave, the magicbox of a singular interface. the

observation machinethe instant in which he provokes its displacement. the pre-rational On the one hand, speed distance the distance origins oftends towards infinity; this is the morphological science. aspectof the problem. On the other, and simultaneous hand, obliterates the approximate distance the notion of physical approaches zero, by dint of the

televised transparency replaces the appearance of directfrom analogic commutation to temporal dimension. commutation.vision. We are facing erasure acceleration of the actual act of measuring submits.Where we once had art for the sake of domiciliation

the art of theoretical : the concentration of a conception, now we have science

without domiciles, Given this explosion of data science of a magico-statistical representation of

the world, “The camera has become our best inspect- or,” digital placarding.

The measure of extension and of movement is now at most exlusivelythe production of distance in discussions, that

of the technical vector, remote control aggressiveness. Today, wemust begin to recognize that the systems and instruments

of measurement are less chronometricthan cinemetric. no longer the time of passagebut rather the speed, the distance-speed, privileged dimension of space as of time.

the light of speed illuminatesthe world and all its matterin the very instant the violence

of its fusion power of its emission replaced,day and night stopped organizing the life ofthe city of teleology and topology, or networks andfluxes, celerity, not as “acceleration” so much as “illumination” – less speed than subliminal light,

The glance is at once siteand sight. the apparitionof high speeds, speed finallyallows us to close the gap between physics

and metaphysics.

Are we prepared to accept a reversal of all philosophic meaning,hereafter considering accident as absolute and necessary andsubstance – all substance – as relative and contingent, hereafter consideringcatastrophe not as substantial deformation but rather as an unexpectedaccidental formation Probably in the new Ameri-

can technologies of instantaneous fusion/confusion without any emplacement, precise place,

destruction too-great profusion of facts

We must at least resolve ourselves to losing the senseof our senses, If that happens,instantaneous representation.there will be no Architecture is moreessential difference than an arraybetween space of techniques de-grains of matter or of light signed to shelter economic – in- us from the storm. dustrial recess- vanishes, ion and war. space and timeno more than macro- architecturescopic statistical a kind of machinery gallery,realities, grain,and is replaced “ that indivisible

by the depth physical entity, involves aof time crisis of determinism.of the in- the importance of figures,direct recording of numerical data. of movementextension in the organization direction of space, wecan easily predict the effects of their statistical relativization &sudden re-realization , in the end, all that

counts is the quiltat the “hands” seemingly sacrificing

the grid of Cartesian coordinates

--Athens 2009