Accelerationism

"Accelerationism is [the name of a contemporary] political heresy: the insistence that the only radical political response to capitalism is not to protest, disrupt, or critique, nor to await its demise at the hands of its own contradictions, but to accelerate its uprooting, alienating, decoding, abstractive tendencies. The term was introduced into political theory to designate a certain nihilistic alignment of philosophical thought with the excesses of capitalist culture (or anticulture), embodied in writings that sought an immanence with this process of alienation. The uneasy status of this impulse, between subversion and acquiescence, between realist analysis and poetic exacerbation, has made accelerationism a fiercely-contested theoretical stance. At the basis of all accelerationist thought lies the assertion that the crimes, contradictions and absurdities of capitalism have to be countered with a politically and theoretically progressive attitude towards its constituent elements." (Mackay and Avanessian, 2014:4)

Events

• Accelerationism symposium, Goldsmiths, London, 14 Sep 2010. [1]
• New Accelerationism workshop, Goldsmiths, London, 15 May 2013. [2]
• Accelerationism: A Symposium on Tendencies in Capitalism, Berlin, 14 Dec 2013. Curated by Armen Avanessian and Matteo Pasquinelli. Video documentation
• Fixing the Future event series, started in June 2014. Organized by Diann Bauer, Joshua Johnson, Suhail Malik, Mohammad Salemy, and Keith Tilford. Online seminars: Deneb Kozikoski, Anthony Paul Smith, Peter Wolfendale.

Authors

• Armen Avanessian
• Diann Bauer
• Craig Hickman
• The New Centre for Research & Practice
• Benjamin Noys
• Matteo Pasquinelli
• Mohammad Salemy
• Nick Srnicek
• Alex Williams

Writings

Noys

• Benjamin Noys, "Accelerationism", No Useless Leniency blog, Oct 2008.
• Benjamin Noys, "Apocalypse, Tendency, Crisis", Mute 15 (Feb 2010); repr. in Eurozine, May 2010.
• Benjamin Noys, The Persistence of the Negative: A Critique of Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Sep 2010, 196 pp. Discusses the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Latour, Negri, and Badiou from the perspective of accelerationism (see also the section 'Primary references' below). [3]
• Steven Shaviro, Post Cinematic Affect, O-Books, Dec 2010, 200 pp. A book on accelerationist aesthetics, treating recent audiovisual productions as mappings of the spaces and affective modulations of neoliberal capitalism. Passage (pp 136-139).

Talks

• Benjamin Noys, "The Grammar of Neoliberalism", 2010; printed in Dark Trajectories: Politics of the Outside, ed. Joshua Johnson, Miami: Name, Aug 2013. Talk given at the Accelerationism workshop at Goldsmiths on 14 Sep 2010.
• Benjamin Noys, "Abandoning Accelerationism? Two Exits", 2013. Talk given at University of Westminster on 23 May 2014.

Primary references

Noys: "In my critical account [The Persistence of the Negative], accelerationism originates as an explicit theory in the early 1970s in three main works [listed below]. The common origin lies in the recognition that capitalism forms the dominant horizon, subsuming not only forms of life but also strategies of opposition," (from his June 2013 interview). "[These three texts] reply to Marx’s contention that ‘[t]he real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself’, by arguing that we must crash through this barrier by turning capitalism against itself. They are an exotic variant of la politique du pire: if capitalism generates its own forces of dissolution then the necessity is to radicalise capitalism itself: the worse the better. We can call this tendency accelerationism," (passage) (pp 4-6).

• Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia [1972], trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane, University of Minnesota Press, 1983.
• Jean-François Lyotard, Libidinal Economy [1974], trans. Ian Hamilton Grant, Indiana University Press, 1993.
• Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Economy and Death [1976], trans. Ian Hamilton Grant, Sage, 1993.

#Accelerate Manifesto and commentaries

• Alex Williams, Nick Srnicek, "#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics", Critical Legal Thinking blog, 14 May 2013; repr. in Dark Trajectories: Politics of the Outside, ed. Joshua Johnson, Miami: Name, Aug 2013; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014. "We believe the most important division in today's left is between those that hold to a folk politics of localism, direct action, and relentless horizontalism, and those that outline what must become called an accelerationist politics at ease with a modernity of abstraction, complexity, globality, and technology."
  • Translations.
• McKenzie Wark, "#Celerity: A Critique of the Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics", May 2013.
• Craig Hickman, "The Age of Speed: Accelerationism, Politics, and the Future Present", Alien Ecologies blog, 26 May 2013.
• JD Taylor, "Nowhere Fast? A Brief Critique of the Accelerationist Manifesto", AntiCapitalist Initiative blog, 30 May 2013.
• Antonio Negri, "Riflessioni sul Manifesto per una Politica Accelerazionista", EuroNomade, 7 Feb 2014. (in Italian)
  • "Some Reflections on the #Accelerate Manifesto", trans. Vito De Lucia and Connal Parsley, Critical Legal Thinking blog, 26 Feb 2014.
  • "Reflections on the 'Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics'", trans. Matteo Pasquinelli, e-flux 53 (Mar 2014); posted on EuroNomade.
• Nick Land, "Annotated #Accelerate", Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Urban Futures blog, 14-17 Feb 2014.
• Nick Land, "On #Accelerate", Part 1, Part 2a, Part 2b, Part 2c, Urban Futures blog, 5-11 Mar 2014.

Selected essays

• Gean Moreno, "Notes on the Inorganic", e-flux 31 (Jan 2012).
• Alex Williams, "Escape Velocities", e-flux 46 (Jun 2013).
• Benedict Singleton, "Maximum Jailbreak", e-flux 46 (Jun 2013); repr. as "Maximum Jailbreak (Extended Mix)" in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.
• Armen Avanessian, "Criticism - Crisis - Acceleration", in Survival Kits. An Artist's and Thinker's Book, ed. Deborah Ligorio, Berlin: Sternberg, 2013, pp 56-61.
• Matteo Pasquinelli, "The Labour of Abstraction: Seven Transitional Theses on Marxism and Accelerationism", Dec 2013; printed in Fillip 19 (Jun 2014).
• Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams, Armen Avanessian, "#Accelerationism: Remembering the Future", Tag Allgemeiner Zeitung, 4 Feb 2014; posted on Critical Legal Thinking blog, 10 Feb 2014.
• Tiziana Terranova, "Red Stack Attack!", Quaderni di San Precario blog, 12 Feb 2014, [4] [5]; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014. Commentary by Craig Hickman.
• Luciana Parisi, "Automated Architecture", in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014. Commentary by Craig Hickman.
• Ross Wolfe, "The Future of Enlightenment: Thoughts on 'Universalism and Its Discontents'", The Charnel-House blog, 12 Jun 2014.
• Nick Land's blog posts on acceleration.

Anthologies

• e-flux 46: "Accelerationist Aesthetics" (Jun 2013), ed. Gean Moreno. Texts by Alex Williams, Steven Shaviro, Benjamin Bratton, François Roche, Franco Berardi Bifo, Mark Fisher, Benedict Singleton, Debbora Battaglia, Patricia MacCormack, and John Russell.
• Armen Avanessian (ed.), #Akzeleration, Berlin: Merve, Dec 2013, 96 pp. (in German). Texts by Armen Avanessian, Franco Bifo Berardi, Nick Land, Patricia McCormack, Benjamin Noys, Matteo Pasquinelli, Nick Srnicek, and Alex Williams. [6], Introduction. Review: Drees.
• Robin Mackay, Armen Avanessian (eds.), #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, Falmouth: Urbanomic, May 2014, 536 pp. Texts by Mark Fisher, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Antonio Negri, Tiziana Terranova, Luciana Parisi, Reza Negarestani, Ray Brassier, Benedict Singleton, Nick Land, Patricia Reed, Diann Bauer, and the section on "a genealogy of accelerationism". [7], Introduction. Review: Harris.
• Armen Avanessian, Robin Mackay (eds.), #Akzeleration#2, trans. Moritz Gansen and Hannah Wallenfels, Berlin: Merve, (forthcoming Oct 2014), 100 pp. (in German). Texts by Ray Brassier, Nick Land, Toni Negri, Luciana Parisi, Nick Srnicek, Tiziana Terranova and Alex Williams. [8]
• Ed Keller, Tim Matts, Benjamin Noys (eds.), Dark Glamor: Accelerationism and the Occult, 2 vols., Punctum Books, (forthcoming Jan 2015). Introduction.

Interviews

• C. Derick Varn, "The Main Currents of Communization: Interview With Benjamin Noys", The North Star blog, 28 June 2013.
• C. Derick Varn, Dario Cankovich, "The Speed of Future Thought: Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek interviewed", The North Star blog, 15 July 2013.
• Philipp Ekardt, "Die Think Tanks und die Fetischisten. Ein Gespräch mit Armen Avanessian und Aram Lintzel über Akzelerationismus", Texte zur Kunst, 30 May 2014. (in German)

Blogs

Nick Srnicek (Synthetic Edifice), Nick Land (Urban Future), London-based PhD-students (Accelerationism: Cosmism, Prometheanism, New Enlightenment), Craig Hickman (Alien Ecologies).

More

• Online accelerationist writings compiled by Nick Land.
• Accelerationism on Academia.edu
• Accelerationism at Wikipedia

References

1990s UK theory-fiction on acceleration

• Nick Land, "Circuitries", Pli 4:1/2 (1992), pp 217-235; repr. in Land, Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier, Urbanomic, 2011, pp 289-318; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.
• Nick Land, "Meltdown", Abstract Culture 1, Coventry: CCRU, 1997, [9]; repr. in Land, Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier, Urbanomic, 2011, pp 441-459. [10]. First presented at Virtual Futures, Warwick University, May 1994.
• Nick Land, Sadie Plant, "Cyberpositive", in Unnatural: Techno-Theory for a Contaminated Culture, ed. Matthew Fuller, 1994; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.
• Iain Hamilton Grant, "Los Angeles 2019: Demopathy and Xenogenesis (Some Realist Notes on Blade Runner and the Postmodern Condition)" [1997]; printed as "LA 2019: Demopathy and Xenogenesis" in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.
• CCRU, "Cybernetic Culture"; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.
• CCRU, "Swarmachines", Abstract Culture 1, Coventry: CCRU, 1997, [11]; repr. in #Accelerate#: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.

See also

• Cybernetic Culture Research Unit
• Karl Marx

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