Virilio discards the notion that democracy owes its existence to political observers as naive. The world's visibility suffers less from camouflage and concealment than it does from problems of perception on the part of the subject. Humans, according to Virilio, are not lingual beings, but are controlled in their thoughts and actions by the force of implanted images. We only have to open our eyes in the morning, and already we find ourselves in a museum of outlived modes and styles of observation. Perception is occupied territory.
Negative perception discovers a space as yet uncolonized.
If the image of material objects is necessarily predetermined, then new things can be made visible only by looking at the void inbetween things. To see nothing is to maintain sight. In the void we may yet observe the disappearance of our culture. The disappearance of the natural contours of landscape, city, national borders, political adversaries, bodies, time, the interval and the decision comprises a story that Virilio tries to come to terms with over and over again, and that takes up a considerable part of his works. By turning perception inside out it becomes possible to visualize disappearance, even if it is by definition invisible.