reading notes---overexposed city

Contemporary science and technology are producing new forms of experience, new modes of perception and representation. Virilio suggested that the city is decentered in relation to the rise of suburbs and then telecommunications and new sites of work and interaction in a post-industrial society. Virilio's "overexposed city" is penetrated by media and advertising, information technology. In Virilio's vision, the urban wall and gateways have given way to the openings to media channels, information and communication networks, and diverse new technologies. With the interface of monitors and control screens (computers, television, teleconferencing), “elsewhere” begins here and vice versa. Not long ago, the opening of the city’s gates was still determined by the alternating of day and night. Today, since we not only open the shutters but also the television, daylight itself has been changed. A false electronic day, whose only calendar is based on “commutations” of information bearing no relationship whatsoever to real time, is now added to the solar day of astronomy, electric light and the dubious “ daylight” of candles.
Technology is a window to the outside world. It obliterates urban boundaries and spaces to the geopolitical channels of the global world and the world of cyberspace. Exposed to global culture and communication, the city loses its specificity. City life gives way to technological cyber-life, a heterogeneous and fractured space, and a world-time that enables individuals to experience events simultaneously from every time zone in the world..