ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the transfer accident is indicative of Paul Virilio's conception of the 'spread' of 'sociopolitical cybernetics' or the removal of human autonomy regarding computerized machines. It considers how contemporary French critic of the art of technology Virilio's The Vision Machine, Polar Inertia, and The University of Disaster interrogate the character of new media vision technologies. The vision machine as a specific subject of investigation emerged in Virilio's writings during 1980's alongside his work on philosophy of painting, engraving, and architecture. For Virilio, the moon landing was world-shattering in the sense that it engendered and imparted novel concepts and potentialities for human civilization. Indeed, for Virilio, 'the development of the mobile phone' is actually the precursor of wearing of 'intelligent garments, those future 'electronic straightjacket's' that herald a 'universal remote control'. For Virilio, the origins of control space involve 'the progressive disappearance of the space of anthropological-geographic reference in favour of a culture of a mere visual piloting'.
