Vol. 19 No. 20 · 16 October 1997
pages 14-15 | 2865 words
When Eyesight is Fully Industrialised
John Kerrigan
- Open Sky by Paul Virilio, translated by Julie Rose
Verso, 152 pp, £35.00, August 1997, ISBN 1 85984 880 X
Plunging in free-fall, a parachutist just out of an aeroplane sees the Earth spread out before him with the steadiness of a map. As his eyes resolve the detail, however, at about 600 metres, the ground seems to rush towards him, then split apart with dizzying speed: ‘The apparent diameter of objects increases faster and faster and you suddenly have the feeling you are not seeing them getting closer but seeing them move apart suddenly, as though the ground were splitting open.’
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Letters
Vol. 19 No. 22 · 13 November 1997
From Russell Seitz
Reading John Kerrigan’s description (LRB, 16 October) of Open Sky, Paul Virilio’s critique of the acceleration of history, aboard an interminable flight from London is enough to make one go ballistic: Virilio simply ignores the impact of energy economics and environmental rhetoric on the declining speed of jet travel. The inauguration in 1958 of a direct commercial service by Boeing 707s from Los Angeles to New York saw flight times of barely four hours. Today this flight takes six. On a recent 747 flight from Britain to Pakistan my portable satellite navigation receiver (GPS) noted an average speed of well under 400 knots – even as Virilio was writing Vitesse et politique in 1977, propeller-driven commercial aircraft were flying this route faster. Popular misperceptions of the effects of supersonic flights on stratospheric chemistry continue to retard the development of aircraft larger, faster and more fuel-efficient than the ageing Concorde.
Russell Seitz
Olin Institute for Strategic Studies
