LIVE TRANSMISSION: ATTENTION AND DRAWING AS TIME-BASED PERFORMANCE

PAUL VIRILIO
urbaniste, essayist, Ancien President et Directeur de l'Šcole Speciale d'Architecture, Paris, France English translation: Maria Grazia Ricanati and O'Hara

WORDS IN THE AIR

There is silence in SOUND, while the invisible is the silence of SIGNS, of gestures which escape our notice at every instant.

Words in the air, the gestures which accompany language, draw around us improvised traces which are clouds of meaning. Tree of cognitions, this vegetation of our gestuality stirs at the breath of The Word, like foliage.

Why then are we SYMMETRICAL, if not to move on the axis of our body (?): two arms, two hands, two legs and one common trunk which equilibrates our physical expression.

To capture the "to be symmetrical", and thus harmony, eludes us like the wake of a ship. To be known, recognized by one's movement, one's MOTILITY in place and not by one's MOBILITY, one's movement through space, is the motive behind the scrutinizing looks of others. continue >>