A Study Of Paul Virilio’s Artistic Thought In The Context Of Dromology

Contemporary French thinker Paul Virilio has an appalling breadth of thought,and his research work spans the military,urban architecture,media and social theory,aesthetics,politics,and other fields.In this range of concerns,the issues of speed and technology have always been the starting point of all his research.Virilio collectively calls his theory of speed and technology "dromology".Influenced by phenomenology,Virilio relates the problem of speed to the problem of human perception,thus focusing on the reshaping of human perceptual patterns by technological acceleration.On this basis,Virilio offers his own reflections and critique of the ongoing transformation of contemporary art.In this paper,we will examine Virilio’s artistic thinking in the context of velocity and explore its theoretical value and significance.The thesis is specifically divided into the following sections to develop the discussion:The first part begins with Virilio’s life and academic path,examines the influence of the theoretical perspective of phenomenology on the formation of his dromology,and briefly outlines the background and connotation of Virilio’s dromology.After experiencing the impact of war and graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts,Virilio’s research began with military architecture,and after realizing the impact of the technological revolution,Virilio coined the term "dromology".Later on,with his skills in art and architecture,and the influence of phenomenology and Gestalt psychology,Virilio’s research gradually expanded into the field of perception.Virilio’s dromology was always concerned with the impact of technological acceleration on individual perception and on socio-political and cultural life,due to the theoretical background of phenomenology.From dromology,Virilio’s thinking and critique of art has been a part of his writing career.The second part discusses the boundaries of art,exploring how,in Virilio’s view,speed has deconstructed the original boundaries of art and,through reinterpretation,has extended them indefinitely to the point of catastrophe.First,the communication technology of remote and real-time presence dissolves the original concept of time and space,coupled with the technological prosthesis to assist human beings in perceptual experience,traditional art is deconstructed into "disappearing art";second,art is influenced by war and technology,and remote visualism renews the old forms and expressions of art;finally,the boundaries of art disappear,slipping into disaster.In the end,the boundaries of art disappeared,sliding towards disaster,human existence contracted,and the real world ceased to exist.The third part of the discussion starts from the perspective of art’s emotional expression,analyzing the impact of speed on art’s emotional expression.Under acceleration,the state of remote and real-time presence destroys the possibility of "empathy," and people fall into loneliness and panic,art loses its compassion for the other and becomes cold-blooded and heartless.As a victim of war,art,in the state of "pure war",changed from criticizing terror to calling for terror,and even desecrating the human body,losing the glory of humanism.The result is what Virilio calls "A Pitiless Art".The fourth part is a dialectical exploration of the contemporary thinking brought about by artistic thought in the context of dromology.On the one hand,Virilio criticizes the accelerated technological art,with the fundamental aim of arousing people’s vigilance and reflection,calling for a return to art itself and recovering art with humanistic sentiments.On the other hand,in the face of COVID-19,it was the accelerated development of technology that broke the dilemma of art and brought new life to art.Obviously,the pursuit of technological development and Virilio’s expectation of the return of art are not contradictory.Virilio’s dromology context of artistic thought,though slightly radical,undoubtedly provides a broader vision for the study of art and aesthetics.From this point of departure,it is no less instructive for future art and aesthetic research to pay attention to the dimensions of speed and technology.