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.
The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.
It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.
Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.
Climbing is not a competition, and you cannot talk in terms of 'greatest,' it means nothing.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
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