1. In Paul Virilio's Open Sky he argues that the development of telecommunications will lead to the "loss of the traveller's tale and, with it, the possibility of some kind of interpretation"(25) of "the traveller's tale". The advance in live-feed technology enables our society to be "telepresent to the whole world" (25); that people can be present in many places at once by means of observing it through a television. This eliminates the need for a "traveller's tale" because people no longer need to remember the places they have been because they can just videotape it and that will replace their memory. Virilio argues this will prevent any kind of interpretation of those moments because the video provides a "real-time image" and an "illumination of the reality of the facts" (26). Virilio makes a valid argument about the demise of the "traveller's tale", but he makes some untrue assumptions about live-feed video and human memory. He argues that video will replace memories, but in fact it can act as a second memory, or second interpretation to an experience. A video can show a place or event in one perspective, but a person's memory will provide a whole new perspective in the way that the human brain perceives the same event of place. Observing a place different than a person's present location through a live-feed video does not allow the person to be actually present at both locations, since the seeing the video will give a completely different perspective on the place than actually traveling there. Instead video allows the person to be visually present, which is the perspective the video gives. Virilio is right that telecommunications is starting a "telepresent" society, but he is wrong if he thinks it detracts from actually traveling somewhere and developing a "traveller's tale".
2. Virilio argues that there exists pollution that goes beyond affecting only physical substances, and he calls it "dromospheric" (22) pollution. A pollution that affects people's perceptions of duration and the world, which is caused by the "communications revolution" (22). According to Virilio, though, the study of ecology does not include this temporal pollution, but it should since the whole world is experiencing a "public duration" (23). This "public duration" plays out as humans move around and experience new things through their "journey" (23), which in turn implies there will be a future. However, telecommunications causes people to not move around and experience things, since these experiences can be brought straight to them by way of the television, which causes people to be stuck in the present moment. This prevents people from following their transhumant instincts, which affects the dromology, or duration, of the world as a whole, since the world has no future it has become "endotic" (25). Virilio's argument of the world becoming "endotic" with the advance in telecommunication technology has come a little late. It can be argued that the world has been in the process of becoming "endotic" since the invention of the train and then with the invention of the airplane it became more "endotic". Telecommunication has just increased the endocity of the world, and there will always be something else to diminish "spatial exteriority" (25) even more.
3. Virilio describes “the speed of the new optoelectronic and electroacoustic milieu” as a “final void..., a vacuum that no longer depends on the interval between places or things..., but on the interface of an instantaneous transmission” (33). Because the electromagnetic waves of a video-feed travel at the speed of light they can travel any distance on earth instantly, eliminating the relationship of space and time. Since there is no longer any relationship between space or time, video turns the world into a “void” or black hole, in which a person can instantaneously cover any distance by watching his/her television. Virilio is grossly over exaggerating in his description of the “final void”. Yes, the live-feed does weaken the relationship between time and space, but so did the train, the airplane, and cars. Video is not the ultimate “void”, it is just one on many inventions that enables people to travel distances at a greater speed.
Johnny Mendoza
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In response to Virilio's abstract perception of television and video recording, Johnny takes a more literal stab at "Open Sky." While Virilio seemingly gives life to the video camera by describing it as a living memory, Johnny affirms that the camera cannot represent the personal perceptions of who was experiencing the event and how that affected the moment. If recordings are par with memories, then why suggest that the camera suddenly causes a void in time and space? Shouldn't that void have always existed in light of how our memories can also bring us an "instantaneous transmission" within our minds? Much like Johnny's point about the "train, the airplane, and cars," there have always been ways to figuratively break down time and space, but in a literal sense, that physical transformation has yet to take place.
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