"Töten heisst, erst den Blick rüsten, ins Auge fassen". Paul Virilio im Gespräch mit H.v.A. ("Killing means arming your view, fixing your eye on something". Paul Virilio in conversation with H.v.A.)

The conversation took place on occasion of the re-issue of
Virilio's "Bunker Archéologie" which contains photographs from
1958 to 1965. It is an "archeological" examination of war,
observations on war presented in something of a pictorial museum
framework. Over a period of 7 years Virilio examined and
photographed the traces of war left by German bunkers on the
Atlantic coast from Spain to Danmark. The theme of the book -
war and visuality, military logistics and the technically
mediated supervision and mastering of space - represents one of
the main intelectual preoccupations of the urbanist and media
theoretician Paul Virilio. According to Virilio, war is in a
special relationship to the image - at the beginning of the
attack and the defence there is a phase of revealing and
concealing. Viewing strategies, along with the apparatus of
media technology developing since the 19th century, determine
the military technology of territorial reconnaissance and
domination. From its beginning, photography was a medium of war.
Today its "reconnaissance" function has been taken over to a
great extent by sequential satellite film. The importance of
photos has changed decisively since the advent of videographic
real time. (Published Summary).