Virilio's concept of the ultracity, also known as ‘Ultraville’, was fi rst described as ‘Omnipolis’ in his The Art of the Motor (1995 [1993]) and briefl y elaborated upon in Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology (2006 [1977]), Open Sky (1997 [1995]) and The Information Bomb (2000d [1998]). However, the term ‘ultracity’ is fully developed in Virilio's The Futurism of the Instant: Stop- Eject (2010b [2009]: 32–69), the second chapter of which is titled and devoted to the idea of the ultracity:

For decades, Virilio has discussed the quickening velocity of transportation and communication technologies and its infl uence on people and spaces. He identifi es the ultracity as a radical new urban architecture resulting from communicative instantaneity, perpetual connectivity and a culture in which the 1930s’ German far Right author Ernst Junger's dream of ‘total mobilisation’ has been normalised (see, for example, Armitage 2003). For Virilio, this new architecture requires a complete overhaul of ideas around notions of location, citizenship and movement.

This is because the ultracity is not accessible through roads and highways but, rather, through digital devices and superhighways: the ultracity is then a virtual city that is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere.