Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:36:00 +0000
Subject: belvedere, nomadism... in new york


A

I was  in a bar in NYC West 46th street, the Mezzanie bar in the 
Paramount. As close to a post-modern hotel as I can imagine - drinking 
Belvedere Vodka - straight, espresso and later a glass of Chablis. (The 
Belvedere is/was fantastic - very good 5 star vodka....) I'm reading 
'Virilio Live - selected interviews' - on page 40 Virilio talks of the 
'nomadological understanding of the world' (referring to D&G) - which 
derives its encapsulating force from the way the world is constantly 
changing, ever on the move... endlessly  drifting away from us - so that 
even more than in the early 1970s we have all become driftworks now...Of 
course what Virilio is engaging in is a relationship to the way in which 
the techno-scientific world in which we almost co-exist is constantly 
deterritorialising and reterritorialising us... It was durting the 
reading of the text that I realised the similarity of themes between 
Virillo's work on the techno-scientific, the military-scientific 
complexes and Lyotards work on the inhuman - the similarities are 
interesting. Even to the extent that both their refutations of Haraways 
Cyborg-Feminism are pretty indistinguishable - primarily related to the 
concerns about giving up one's humanity and willingly becoming 'inhuman' 
- most critically they are both asking for breathing space - a slowing 
down of the speed of development...

It's clear that this is an increasingly important demand and that it 
should be merged with the multiplicit demand for the re-distribution of 
wealth.

Virilio's writing on the USA's military-scientific experiments over the 
past decade is significant in the extreme...

In essence then take a look at the Virilio and the belvedere...

regards
steve