From: TorTorsen-AT-aol.com
To: technology-AT-world.std.com
Date: Wed, 18 May 94 01:12:53 EDT
Subject: Virilio


     Although I have some qualms about the technology of "transmission",
Virilio's essay is subject to criticism for being overly nostalgic.  It is
not difficult at all to be fearful of the human costs associated with
innovations.  And this sentiment is familiar.  The essay reminds me of
Benjamin's complaint that the "aura" or challenge emanating from the eyes of
a painted portrait figure is lost somehow in a photographic portrait.  A
second criticism is that Virilio is simply overreacting.  He fears that the
time when people actually leave their homes, go somewhere and do something to
something is to end.  In his "teletopia", we will become the "fabled" couch
potatos interacting all day while our bodies atrophy.  We won't interact face
to face or body to body, preferring the virtual substitutes.  We will come to
resemble a race of sensory-impaired quadrapelgics equipped with prosthetic
devices to resplace our once well-exercised muscles and sensory organs (if
we're lucky).

     This baggage notwithstanding, his analysis is helpful in some respects.
 His observation that in teletechnology the concepts of personality,
extension, movement and action become problematic is on the mark.  The
substitution of a representation for the physical world for that world is
hardly new.  Virilio points out that teletechnology can add something more.
 Writing or visual art can represent the world already.  Teletechnology can
represent *and* act directly on that world.