The Accident of Art

Sylvère Lotringer (Foreign Agents editor), Paul Virilio, Mike Taormina

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French

Massachusetts Inst of Tec
12 August 2005

Series: Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents

"There is a catastrophe within contemporary art. What I call the ""optically correct"" is at stake. The vision machine and the motor have triggered it, but the visual arts haven't learned from it. Instead, they've masked this failure with commercial success. This ""accident"" is provoking a reversal of values. In my view, this is positive- the accident reveals something important we would not otherwise know how to perceive.-Paul Virilio, The Accident of ArtUrbanist and technological theorist Paul Virilio trained as a painter, studying under Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Bazaine and de Stael. In The Accident of Art, his third extended conversation with Sylv re Lotringer, Virilio addresses the situation of art within technological society for the first time. This book completes a collaborative trilogy the two began in 1982 with Pure War and continued with Crepuscular Dawn, their 2002 work on architecture and biotechnology. In The Accident of Art, Virilio and Lotringer argue that a direct relation exists between war trauma and art. Why has art failed to reinvent itself in the face of technology, unlike performing art? Why has art simply retreated into painting, or surrendered to digital technology? Accidents, Virilio claims, can free us from speed's inertia. As technological catastrophes, accidents are inventions in their own right."

By: Sylvère Lotringer (Foreign Agents editor), Paul Virilio
Translated by: Mike Taormina
Imprint: Massachusetts Inst of Tec
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 204g
ISBN: 9781584350200
ISBN 10: 1584350202
Series: Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents
Pages: 128
Publication Date: 12 August 2005
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Sylvere Lotringer, general editor of Semiotext(e), lives in New York and Baja, California. He is the author of Overexposed: Perverting Perversions (Semiotext(e), 2007). Paul Virilio was born in 1932 and has published a wide range of books, essays, and interviews grappling with the question of speed and technology, including Speed and Politics, The Aesthetics of Disappearance, and The Accident of Art, all published by Semiotext(e).

Reviews for The Accident of Art

There is a catastrophe within contemporary art. What I call the optically correct is at stake. The vision machine and the motor have triggered it, but the visual arts haven't learned from it. Instead, they've masked this failure with commercial success. This accident is provoking a reversal of values. In my view, this is positive: the accident reveals something important we would not otherwise know how to perceive. - Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art