The publicity machine and critical theory
In the following interview, recorded in January 1995, leading Parisian theorist, Paul Virilio, denounces the 'publicity mentality', considers the possibility of divine revelation and discusses the significance of video installation, dance, global/individual responsibility, Stelarc, Michael Snow and techno-culture in general.
Can we still make sense of the twentieth century, ‘the century of terror’, the age of ‘speed and politics’?
A century of horror
Nicholas Zurbrugg: I'd like to begin with a very general question. Does the term 'postmodern' have any specific meaning for you? Do you consider that the term has any legitimacy, and if so what for you is its central significance?
Paul Virilio: I think that it's an expression which, in terms of architecture, has predominantly negative overtones. I recollect that the term 'postmodern' was used quite extensively by architects before becoming a more general qualification-and above all by American architects, amongst whom it was very influential in the seventies. Personally, I have to say that it is a term that never really appealed to me. Firstly, because it seemed that postmodern architects were merely syncretic. Just as religious syncretism mixes several cults into a composite form, their work culminated in a kind of composite architectural form, and as such didn't interest me at all. For me, syncretism is a confusion which fails to translate the intensity of contemporary existence. Moreover, the postmodern impulse in architecture has virtually disappeared and is now considered little more than a kind of distraction.
NZ: How do you respond to the concepts of the 'modern' and of the tradition of 'modernity'?
PV: For me, that which is 'modern' is always the present. It's not a past epoch- the fifteenth century... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline