The Vision Machine

A challenging survey of the technologies of perception, production and dissemination of images throughout history by one of France's leading contemporary intellectuals, Paul Virilio. Surveying art history as well as the technologies of war and urban planning, Virilio provides us with an introduction to a new "logistics of the image". From the era of painting, engraving and architecture culminating in the 18th century, the history of "regimes of the visual" shifted with the intervention of the photogram (photography and cinematography) in the 19th century. The latest era starts with videography, holography and infographics, turning the dissolution of modernity into a generalised logic of public representations. Virilio's book offers the most provocative account of the history of "seeing" to date and could revolutionise the way we periodise not only art history but 'social existence' itself [Publisher description].