The machine of vision (from French La machine de vision ) is the concept of the philosophical concept of Paul Virillo , used by him to characterize the prevailing automated and impersonal perception , which leads to blurring and derealization of reality. Formulated in the work of the same name "Machine of Vision" (La machine de vision, Paul Virilio, 1988)
Content
Concept Development
Paul Virillo builds his concept on the analysis of the evolution of visual perception, noting that the view and its spatio-temporal organization precede the gesture, speech and their coordination in cognition and recognition, which makes it the main way of not only perception, but also the formation of reality [1] . In support of his position, he quotes from Maurice Merlot-Ponti 's book Eye and Spirit :
Everything that I see is, in principle, achievable for me (at least for my view), is present on the map “I can”. ” Thus, everything that is seen through the eyes of a person is achievable for him and forms a true picture of the world.
However, the advent of optical instruments , which Virillo gives the name "optical prostheses ", has made significant changes in the context of the acquisition and reconstruction of images. Microscopes, lenses, telescopes - all of these devices make things so far beyond human reach visible. Virillo writes:
Logistics of perception allows the gaze to move in an previously unknown way, collides near and far, generates acceleration, overturning our knowledge of distances and measurements [1] .
Optical prostheses lead to the fact that they become necessary for a complete perception of reality. At this stage, Paul Virillo compares the effect of reality with “cryptography, a puzzle that the viewer can solve only with the play of light and additional optical devices” [1] . Then more advanced devices appear - a photo and video camera, and the last interval, which hit the real effect, is the invention of videography, holography and infographics.
The original world that a person sees turns into an illusion. Improving optical prostheses makes it possible to see better and more, at the same time leading to a crisis of representation and dyslexia of the gaze, which is losing its significance and ceases to be a source of information.
At this stage, the "machine of vision" begins to work on the analysis of objective reality, since the natural view of a person, due to its limitations, cannot cope with the task.
Paul Virillo writes that the machine of vision, which produces vision without human "gaze," leads to an intense form of blindness and industrialization of "non-gaze."
What is digital optics, if not a rational image of intoxication, statistical intoxication, that is, an eclipse of perception that affects equally imaginary and real? Our society as if plunges into the night of conscious blinding, where the horizon of vision and knowledge obscures his will for digital power [2] .
Influence on Contemporaries
The concept of Paul Virillo is reflected in the work of Jean-Luc Marion “The Cross of the Visible.” Marion writes:
The gaze lets the invisible into the visible, of course, not to make it less visible, but, on the contrary, to make it more visible: instead of experiencing the impression of chaotic formlessness, we see the very visuality of things. So only the invisible makes the visible real [3] .
This paradox is directly related to optical prostheses and the creation of vision machines. According to Virillo, a person striving for all-encompassing displaces reality, which is limited to the gaze.
Criticism
Douglas Kellner, in his article “Virillo, War and Technology: Critical Reflections,” writes of the French philosopher as one of “the most prolific critics of the technology drama in the modern era.” However, D. Kellner notes that the concept of the machine of vision does not in detail reflect new technologies, providing in return a statement of fact: new machines of vision affect perception and presentation [4] .
Stepanov M.A. in the article “Abstraction Machines and the End of Prosthetics” disputes the role that Virillo assigns to optical prostheses using the camera as an example. According to Paul Virillo, an automatic and thoughtless look comes to the place of the operator’s look. In turn, Stepanov writes that the camera is not a prosthesis. He notes that the eye and vision cannot be regarded as identical concepts, explaining this with the following example:
You can see infra-ultra, etc. with a neuroprothesis etc. images, but this does not mean to think [5] .
Thus, the gaze cannot be prosthetized.
See also
- Simulacrum
- Derealization
- Understanding Media
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Paul Virillo . Topographic amnesia // Vision machine. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2004 .-- 140 p.
- ↑ Paul Virillo . Machine of vision // Machine of vision. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2004 .-- 140 p.
- ↑ Jean-Luc Marion. Crosshairs of the visible
- ↑ Kellner, Douglas. Virilio, War, and Technology: Some Critical Reflections.
- ↑ Stepanov M.A. Machines of abstraction and the end of prosthetics // Media Philosophy II. Borders of discipline: Materials of the International scientific conference.
Literature
- Virillo Paul Vision Machine / Paul Virillo; Per. with fr. A.V. Shestakova; Ed. V. Yu. Bystrova. - SPb. : Science, 2004 - 140 p. - ISBN 5-02-026858-3
- Sukhareva V.A. Paul Virillo: derealization of reality // V Information school of a young scientist: collection of scientific papers.- Yekaterinburg: Central Scientific Library of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2015.- P. 82-87
- Hansen, Mark B. N. A New Philosophy for New Media // Anthology of Media Philosophy / Edited by V.V. Savchuk. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Russian Academy of Arts, 2013. - S. 264 - 269. - ISBN 978-5-88812-618-9
- Armitage, John. Paul Virilio: From Modernism to Hypermodernism and Beyond. - 2000. [1]