Open Sky

By Velma Wallis

Book Overview

"One day the day will come when the day will not come." Bleak, but passionately political in its analysis of the social destruction wrought by modern technologies of communication and surveillance, Open Sky is Paul Virilio's most far-reaching and radical book. Deepening and extending his earlier work, he explores the growing danger of what he calls a "generalized accident," provoked by the breakdown of our collective and individual relation to time, space and movement in the context of global electronic media. But this is not merely a lucid and disturbing lament for the loss of real geographical spaces, distance, intimacy or democracy. Open Sky is also a call for revolt--against the insidious and accelerating manipulation of perception by the electronic media and repressive political power, against the tyranny of "real time," and against the infantilism of cyberhype. Virilio makes a powerful case for a new ethics of perception, and a new ecology, one which will not only strive to protect the natural world from pollution and destruction, but will also combat the devastation of urban communities by proliferating technologies of control and virtuality. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1859841813
• ISBN13: 9781859841815
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Classically cybertheory, Classically French

This book was recommended by a couple of artist/art critic friends who found it engrossing, but difficult to work through. (They do not have an extensive Internet/technology background, but eat French theory for breakfast.j A few years of online work and an interest in the implications of the increasing importance of tech. mediation of our environment/communication were rewarded (in my case) by Virilio's intriguing discourses--essays,...

His fears are our hopes...

This is mostly a book on cyberculture. Its French title is _La Vitesse de libération_, which translates as "Escape Velocity". Hard luck: Mark Dery independently chose the same title for _his_ essay on cyberculture, so even though Virilio's opus predates Dery's, its translation must come out with a different title. I read it in French when it was published. As an avid reader of cyberculture, I found _Open Sky_ very well...