City of PanicCity of Panic takes the reader on a journey across the airy boulevards of Paris and into the crypt of its Metro. For Virilio, whose sense of cities was formed by earlier wars, Paris is both the City of Light and the City of Panic. Written in the shadow of war, City of Panic argues that cities everywhere have been the dedicated target of political and technological terror throughout the 20th century. The wanton erasure of the past, the construction of identikit places, the proliferation of gated-communities, the ever-widening net of surveillance, the privatisation of what was public ... Now every metropolis is a war zone and every metropolis is the same. In this globalized and militarized everywhere, all citizens are becoming one citizen - saturated, standardized and synchronized - ever-more reliant on a media fabricating a world of fear. For the panic of the 21st century is simply the final phase of the pincer movement. Place-less, media-fed, panic-struck - welcome to the desert of the real. |
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acceleration accident American army audiovisual Baghdad balance of terror become bomb bubble capital centre chaos City of Panic civilian contemporary cosmic create an event declared desert desertification disappearance disaster Earth Ernst Jünger escape velocity everything exemplariness fact finiteness forces FORECLOSURE Gallimard geophysical geopolitical gothic horizon Hugo human hyperpower hyperterrorism iconoclasm INFOWAR inside instantaneous internaut Iraq Iraqi kilometres kind launch Le Nouvel Observateur longer loop mass destruction means METACITY metageophysical metro military nations once Paris Paul Paul Valéry Paul Virilio peace perimeter perspective Pierre Mac Orlan planet political precisely quartiers reality recent revolution rocket Saddam Hussein screen sense siege skyline space SpaceShipOne speed strategic suddenly synchronization television temporal compression terrorist attack third millennium tion transpolitical turn twentieth century ultimate urban Victor Hugo Virilio virtual voyage Walter Benjamin weapons of mass Whence words