Paul Virilio and the Mediation of Perception and Technology David Beard and Joshua Gunn
Are we still free to try and resist the ocular (optic or optoelectronic) inundation by looking away or wearing sunglasses? Not out of modesty or because of some religious taboo, but out of a concern to preserve one’s integrity, one’s freedom on conscience. Paul Virilio (Open Sky 96) In the media studies scholarship aligned with the trajectory
initiated
by the work of the Frankfurt School, Benjamin's "The Work of Art
in the
Age of [Its] Mechanical Reproduction [/Reproducibility]" is cited
as the
one of the first attempts to address the relationship between filmic
technology
and changing modes of human perception.
Two elements of this essay have become crucial touchstones in
film
theory and cultural studies.
First, Benjamin's discussion of the "decay of aura"
speaks to
the possibility that filmic representation can demystify the means of
production and give some insight into ideologically informed
arrangements of
the base. Second—and more
pertinent to our goals—Benjamin argued that the evaporation of aura
achieved
by formal reproducibility reveals an "unconscious optics" of
filmic
reproduction: "the camera introduces us to unconscious optics as
does
psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses" (237). New media technologies, like the camera, allow us to
become
aware of the ways in which perception is molded and, consequently,
aware of how
ideology is perpetuated in the ways in which the subject is asked to
"see" the world.
Though a trajectory in media studies for this work is clear, in rhetorical studies, it has yet to begin. This is not to say that rhetorical studies has been ignorant of the impact of technology upon perception. Work in the rhetoric of science, for example, has drawn from sociologists and philosophers of science who study the impact of technology upon perception and cognition. Think, here of Latour & Woolgar and of Lynch & Woolgar, as they have studied the ways that inscription machines and technologies for image production shape not only what is known, but also the ways that scientists know. Too, think of philosopher of technology Don Ihde, who seeks to create a “phenomenological, hermeneutic framework” (“Interview”) for understanding the role of images in the production of scientific knowledge. But, even though rhetoricians of science (e.g. Bazerman, in Languages of Edison’s Light) show the influence of the works of these philosophers on their own, rhetorical projects, they do not make the leap into connecting technologies of perception to ideology (rather than epistemology). Too concerned with unlocking the epistemological functions of science, Latour and Lynch and Woolgar and Ihde and Bazerman do not make the leap to ideology which a Benjaminian perspective requires. Outside the orbit
of rhetorical studies, film theory has made the leap to the study of
the
ideological, as part of the study of the impact of technology on the
structuring of perception:
Laura
Mulvey's concept of the gaze, and Jean Louis Baudry's "cinematic
apparatus," are two well known vocabularies for talking about
unconscious
optics at the intersection of media forms and textual content vis-
à-vis
the interpellation of the spectator (Mulvey, qtd. in Lapsley and Westlake 79-81).
Central to these works is a
detailed
account of the relationship between the perception of the spectator,
the mode
of representation (or mode of communication; see Gross 60-1), and
technology. The utility of
film
theory to those outside the discipline is limited because of its focus
on the
cinema, leaving its implications for the other technologies and others
modes of
perception implicit.
And so, when scholars in rhetorical studies do draw on this theory (such as Joseph Harris), they become part
of a soup of critical theories that “talk
about how the mass media continue to fix the spectator . . . in a state of
critical apathy and listlessness” (Harris, “The Other Reader”).
The nuanced attention to
the medium integral to film theory taken on its own terms is lost in
this
“theory soup.” And yet—it is clear that scholars in rhetorical studies require some consideration of the relationship between modes or logics of perception and technologies of representation. In an era where technologies change faster than we can describe them, and the experience of the user under these technologies changes faster than we can theorize, we need a body of theory that can guide our investigations into this terrain. This is the terrain of contemporary communication, and we cannot pretend that rhetorical theories that efface differences in media are adequate. If the rhetoric and sociology of science can only serve as a partial guide, and film theory is too bound to its own disciplinary structure to be appropriated easily, then rhetoricians interested in media technology must look elsewhere, To that end, this essay reviews the work of Paul Virilio as a source of a general theory of media technologies and the logics of perception. Virilio has devoted his career to describing the unconscious optics of media technology and human perception. Unlike many of the scholars associated with the Frankfurt school, Virilio has yet to find a large or faithful audience, and is relatively unknown among rhetorically oriented media scholars. Over the course of his career, Virilio has deployed an array of concepts that grapple with the relationship between perception and media technologies in fresh, unique, and often-unpredictable ways. We believe that Virilio's work can enhance the research currently conducted in communication studies, especially that which tackles new media technologies, or that which would cross the bounds of criticism of a single medium. In this review essay, we attempt to organize and explicate Virilio's writing to encourage its up-take in future research. We begin with an introduction to the scope of Virilio's work, and then we move to describing a few key terms from the Virilian vocabulary that are particularly relevant to media studies today. Then, after a brief discussion of the political implications of Virilio's understanding of media technologies and perception, we conclude with suggestions for further research.
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