Paintspace Sketchbook: Archive

Death and Taxes 2009: A Visual Guide to Where Your... →

Oct 30th

“the human animal is capable of not recognizing another human animal as being one...”

– Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net

Oct 29th

“presumably the concept sat well with the marketing department.”

– Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net

Oct 29th

Paul Virilio on the crisis

GC/MG: You believe in chaos?

PV: Having destabilised the financial system, the stock exchange crash might well destabilise the state, which is the guarantor of last resort of collective life. For the time being, the state tries to be reassuring. But if the bourses keep on heading South, it will be state itself that will go in receivership, and that will plunge nations into chaos. This is not me embracing catastrophism. I do not believe that the worst is unavoidable, I do not believe in chaos, that is an untenable position, and it amounts to intellectual arrogance. But that does not mean that one should be prevented from thinking about it. Faced with absolute fear, I counter with hope absolute. Churchill said once that an optimist is somebody who sees opportunity hiding behind every calamity.

Oct 28th

Paul Virilio on the crisis

GC/MG: But then, how would you define the crash of the stock exchange, over and beyond its surprise element?

PV: Like with any contemporary event, it is essential to take into account the integration in synchronous time of various issues at the world-level. A synchronisation has taken place of customs, habits, mores, ways to react to things, and also, of emotions. We have left the era of class-based communitarism for that of instant and simultaneous globalisation of affects and fears - but not longer of opinions. It was already the case with the attacks on the World Trade Center and with the Tsunami. The same happens now with the financial crash. After a short 'technical' phase - bank collapses, shares fall-out - kicks in a phase of 'hystery-isation' of responses. There is talk of "markets going mad", of "irrational" reactions, you'd almost call it 'end of the world craze'. Terrorists have very well understood this mechanism, and they make use of it. GC/MG Do you, like some people do, believe that capitalism is nearing its end? PV: I rather believe that the end is nearing capitalism. My field is urban studies. This crisis shows that the Earth is not large enough for progress, for the speed of History (as we have it). Hence repetitive accidents. We were living in the belief that we had both a past and a future. But 'the past does not pass', it has become a monster, so much so that we do not mention it anymore. And as far as the future is concerned, it is severely questioned by the issue of the environment, and the end of natural resources like oil. So the only place left for us to inhabit is the present. But the writer Octavio Paz said it before: "you cannot live in the present moment, just as you cannot live in the future". It is exactly what all of us are now going through, and that includes the bankers.

Oct 28th

Paul Virilio on the crisis (Radical Perspectives... →

Oct 28th