Crepuscular Dawn

by Paul Virilio, Sylvère Lotringer, Mike Taormina (Translator)

The "genetic bomb" marks a turn in the history of humanity.

The accident is a new form of warfare. It is replacing revolution and war. Sarajevo triggered the First World War. New York is what Sarajevo was. September 11th opened Pandora's box. The first war of globalization will be the global accident, the total accident, including the accident of science. And it is on the way. In 1968, Virilio abandoned his work in oblique architecture, believing that time had replaced space as the most important point of reflection because of the dominance of speed. We were basically on the verge of converting space time into space speed... Speed facilitates the decoding of the human genome, and the possibility of another humanity: a humanity which is no longer extra-territorial, but extra-human. Crespuscular Dawn expands Virilio's vision of the implosion of physical time and space, onto the micro-level of bioengineering and biotechnology. In this cat-and-mouse dialogue between Sylvere Lotringer and Paul Virilio, Lotringer pushes Virilio to uncover the historical foundations of his biotech theories. Citing various medical experiments conducted during World War II, Lotringer asks whether biotechnology isn't the heir to eugenics and the "science for racial improvement" that the Nazis enthusiastically embraced. Will the endocolonizataion of the body come to replace the colonization of one's own population by the military? Both biographical and thematic, the book explores the development of Virilio's investigation of space (architecture, urbanism) and time (speed and simultanaeity) that would ultimately lay the foundation for his theories on biotechnology and his startling declaration that after the colonization of space begins the colonization of the body.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Politics, Technology

185 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military.

Reviews

[Ubiquitousbastard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I freaking loathed this book. The men involved in the dialogue never disagreed with one another, so that keeps things fresh and interesting...oh wait, no it doesn't. Then there are all the made up terms that there is about no effort put forth to properly explain, and then these made up terms are combined with others and defined by other pretend terms so it becomes an almost unreadable mishmash of two weird Frenchmen doing a mutual tug-session. There might have been a few ideas that could have been interesting if there wasn't the whole anti-adversarial style, ridiculous words, and the terrible cheesy language they use. The last sentences of the book still make me want to stab myself in the face so I'll stop thinking of how awful and trite they sound.
I would recommend someone read Cat in the Hat five hundred times rather than attempt this freakfest.

[michal k-c · Rating 2 out of 5]

The long-form conversation format doesn’t really do Virilio any big favours (for the record I think he has a truly special mind / perspective). Anytime something really interesting was said, for instance, about how the American city is designed to essentially de-socialize individuals, the topic pivots, people digress, it moves along leaving the insight in the dust. Just read Speed and Politics, Lost Dimension, and if you’ve recently gotten a tax refund maybe you can buy yourself a copy of Bunker Archeology

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good discussion of Virilio’s career and thoughts on the issues of his times.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

It starts out strong, in that I really liked reading Virilio discuss his architectural theories in detail. The "oblique function" stuff was neat, and interesting, and showed a crafty mind.

But it was in the second half, when he started getting into his theories around what he calls dromology (the "science (or logic) of speed") that I felt things lost the plot a bit. Not even about dromology itself, more that he used it as a jumping off point to critique modern technology - with frequent references to eugenics, Nazism, Aushewitz, etc - and how humanity itself is threatened by the pending advent of the super-human to the point that he started to sound more and more like a crank than an important thinker.

But this is a slight little book, and is made up of transcripts of discussions that occurred over a three year period. So it's tough to get a real gauge on what he's really saying, as much of the conversation seems to be an overview of nearly thirty years of his work, so I can't tell if his thoughts are simply incomplete - or incomprehensible - or if the format simply allows for too many gaps and assumptions. All in all, most of what he says comes off as simply unsupported conjecture, but it's difficult to provide the detail needed to support the weight of his pronouncements in under 200 pages...

It's unfortunate, because from what I can tell, I'd likely enjoy his works centered around the "War Model", but it's not really dealt with here. I might give some of it a shot if I stumble across it.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my intro to Virilio. It's a cobbled-together series of conversations with Sylvere Lotringer about Virilio's career and ideas up until 2002. So... a useful introductory summary of his work.

I'm assuming that the casual nature of this book explains the audacious (wildly speculative?)"theorizing" in which Virilio engages with Lotringer. Off the cuff, he culls from an impressive largess of historical, cultural, architectural, philosophical, and literary knowledge to support his ideas; but his logic doesn't seem exactly rigorous. Or maybe it suggests we abandon syllogism: terror is irrational anyway. This style of argument makes Virilio resemble a dramatist and bricoleur, and maybe more so a Nietzschean with his "post-human" scenarios and eschatology. His central tenet seems to be, violence is the formative and finalizing experience of "humanity." Unlike Nietzsche, I think Virilio's predictions are meant to be taken literally, though his arguments come across poetical. And he's unequivocal to a fault. Certainly reckless in this way.

But overall a great, quick read on the self-fulfilling fatalism of progress (is there such a thing?). The violence of Virilio's thought echoes the war and speed that have captured it. I guess if future war is waged as "accident," brilliantly exigent thought should be born the same way -- as some exploding test or hypothesis. It makes for exciting and frightening reading.

[jonah grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Virilio uses the concept of ‘dromology’, the study of speed, to demonstrate its all-encompassing effects in our lives, especially in relation to politics, economics, and society. We constantly participate in this hyper-interactivity, dominated by speed: we want information & we want things done right here right now. Speed has been so necessary & critical for humans that Virilio argues that it is the momentum of speed that directs the course of history & our lives & that we have made the world too small; the consequences are inevitable & dire. To the extent that we are aware of this, he shows how wrapped up we are that we still continue down this speed-driven path and our speed blurs our ability to take notice of our surroundings clearly and represses our reaction time so much so that even if we recognize the disasters we are heading into & the mishaps that are bound to happen, we no can longer slow down – reminiscent of being in a speeding train. Hence, the speed takes hold of us & of everything (time, space, history, etc). He throws in many more interesting concepts & further explanation of his theory, it is so worth reading!

[Emily Alvarado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this. Paul Virilio is one of the lesser known Situationist-esque French intellectuals but totally unique....and besides that, this shit is NO JOKE. Not exactly an easy read----but considering his other work, this is very accessible. Read this so we can have conversations about it.

[Anna]

I was shocked to learn that this dialogue (excepting the epilogue) took place between November 1999 and May 2001. Fitting that the epilogue was in May 2002. When I reached the end and saw "May 2001" it was sobering.

[Carlos Blancas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Virilio is the archetypal French intellectual who specializes in pulling nonsensical ephemera out of his ass and calling it Deep Thought. Strictly for the birds.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, the interview format made it much easier to understand a lot of the concepts.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This text contains a number of interviews between Sylvère Lotringer and Paul Virilio relating to Virilio’s oeuvre. In the introduction to the text, Lotringer suggests that the “oxymoron of the title” indicates “something deeply ambivalent about Virilio’s work” (8). The Crepuscular, signifying an animal relating to twilight, meets with the Dawn, relating the introduction of the sun. Together, the Crepuscular Dawn signifies the coming or introduction of the night—a night that is no longer distinct from day; an end of human light; a “black hole”.

The text is composed of four major sections which relate to four area’s of Virilio’s thought—architecture (archeology), speed (dromology), eugenics, and the accident (of science)—to more general themes of escape velocity and grey ecology. Rumbling beneath the surface of the text is an encounter with the positive negation of the death of God, the striation of the tower, and the death of this world—the end of humankind. These themes, I argue, underlie Virilio’s thought more generally. Furthermore, I believe that Crepuscular Dawn provides a key to understanding Virilio’s work as a whole—through the oblique function. By examining the oblique function in relation to the tower of 90 degree angle, we can interpret how Virilio responds to other striating technologies and designs—not through a Luddie-esque Stoppage, but rather as a call for struggle (or a brake) rather than a full forward acceleration by stomping down on the pedal (as is common in scholarly engagement with technology).

Full review: https://beatitudeoflove.wordpress.com...