The field of vision is comparable, for me, to the terrain of an archaeological dig. To see is to be on guard, to wait for what emerges from the background, without any name, without any particular interest: what was silent will speak, what is closed will open and will take on a voice.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of observation and awareness in uncovering deeper truths.
Paul Virilio's quote draws a parallel between observing one's surroundings and the meticulous process of an archaeological dig, suggesting that true understanding requires patience and vigilance. By attentively watching the world, we can reveal hidden aspects of life and meaning that may initially go unnoticed, transforming silence into voice and obscurity into insight.
In practice
Using this quote in a lecture about the importance of careful observation in art and science.
When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution...Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.
I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
Sometimes I get the feeling that we're just a bunch of habits. The gestures we repeat over and over, they're just our need to be recognized. Without them, we'd be unidentifiable. We have to reinvent ourselves every minute.
I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.
I knelt and prayed, and the strongest truth came over me. Didn't matter if God in his heaven was a Catholic or a Protestant God, or the God of the Hindus. What mattered was something deeper and older and more powerful than any such image - it was a concept of goodness based upon the affirmation of life, the turning away from destruction, from the perverse, from man using and abusing man. It was the affirmation of the human and the natural.
I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.
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