The Aesthetics of Disappearance

In The Aesthetics of Disappearance, Paul Virilio traces out the relationship of biological optics to the technological "production of appearance." In the perceptual gaps demanding illusions of continuity, Virilio posits a hyper-opportunity for the production of art in speed. Jumping from Old Testament parable to the history of contemporary cinema, to the history of philosophy and contemporary technology, Virilio teleports among an irregular constellation of high-speed artifice where love is a motion faster than light and the paradoxes of empiricism mire science in "motion without mobility."

About the Author

Paul Virilio was born in Paris in 1932 to an immigrant Italian family. Trained as an urban planner, he became the director of the École Speciale d'Architecture in the wake of the 1968 rebellion. He has published twenty-five books, including Pure War (1988) (his first in English) and The Accident of Art (2005), both with Sylvère Lotringer and published by Semiotext(e).