An apparently contradictory yet radically urgent collection of texts tracing the genealogy of a controversial current in contemporary philosophy.
Accelerationism is the name of a contemporary political heresy- the insistence that the only radical political response to capitalism is not to protest, disrupt, critique, or detourne it, but to accelerate and exacerbate its uprooting, alienating, decoding, abstractive tendencies.
#Accelerate presents a genealogy of accelerationism, tracking the impulse through 90s UK darkside cyberculture and the theory-fictions of Nick Land, Sadie Plant, Iain Grant, and CCRU, across the cultural underground of the 80s (rave, acid house, SF cinema) and back to its sources in delirious post-68 ferment, in texts whose searing nihilistic jouissance would later be disavowed by their authors and the marxist and academic establishment alike.
On either side of this central sequence, the book includes texts by Marx that call attention to his own ""Prometheanism,"" and key works from recent years document the recent extraordinary emergence of new accelerationisms steeled against the onslaughts of neoliberal capitalist realism, and retooled for the twenty-first century.
At the forefront of the energetic contemporary debate around this disputed, problematic term, #Accelerate activates a historical conversation about futurality, technology, politics, enjoyment, and capital. This is a legacy shot through with contradictions, yet urgently galvanized today by the poverty of ""reasonable"" contemporary political alternatives.
Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian, 'Introduction'; Karl Marx, 'Fragment on Machines'; Samuel Butler. 'The Book of the Machines'; Nikolai Fedorov, 'The Common Task'; Thorstein Veblen, 'The Machine Process and theNatural Decay of the Business Enterprise'; Shulamith Firestone, 'The Two Modes of Cultural History'; Jacques Camatte, 'Decline of the Capitalist Mode of Production or Decline of Humanity?'; Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 'The Civilized Capitalist Machine'; Jean-Francois Lyotard, 'Energumen Capitalism'; Jean-Francois Lyotard, 'Every Political Economyis a Libidinal Economy'; Gilles Lipovetsky, 'Power of Repetition'; J.G. Ballard, 'Fictions of All Kinds'; Jean-Francois Lyotard, 'Desirevolution'; Nick Land, 'Circuitries'; Iain Hamilton Grant, 'LA 2019: Demopathy and Xenogenesis'; Sadie Plant and Nick Land, 'Cyberpositive'; CCRU, 'Cybernetic Culture'; CCRU, 'Swarmachines'; Mark Fisher, 'Terminator vs Avatar'; Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, '#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics'; Antoni Negri, 'Reflections on the Manifesto'; Tiziana Terranova, 'Red Stack Attack!'; Luciana Parisi, 'Automated Architecture'; Reza Negarestani, 'The Labor of the Inhuman'; Ray Brassier, 'Prometheanism and its Critics'; Benedict Singleton, 'Maximum Jailbreak'; Nick Land, 'Teleoplexy: Notes on Acceleration'; Patricia Reed, 'Seven Prescriptions for Accelerationism'; Diann Bauer, '4 x Accelerationisms'
Robin Mackay is a philosopher, Director of the UK arts organization Urbanomic, and Associate Researcher at Goldsmiths University of London. Robin Mackay is a philosopher, Director of the UK arts organization Urbanomic, and Associate Researcher at Goldsmiths University of London. Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes/Saint Denis. He published 25 books, including five in collaboration with Felix Guattari. Felix Guattari (1930-1992), post-'68 French psychoanalyst and philosopher, is the author of Anti-Oedipus (with Gilles Deleuze), and a number of books published by Semiotext(e), including The Anti-Oedipus Papers, Chaosophy, and Soft Subversions. Cybernetic Culture Research Unit was a name on a door in the Philosophy Department of Warwick University, UK, during the late 1990s. It was a rogue unit, blurring the borders between traditional scholarship, cyberpunk sci-fi, and music journalism. Its frenzied interdisciplinary activity, including the Virtual Futures and Virotechnology conferences and the journal Abstract Culture, disturbed Warwick's Philosophy Department, resulting in the termination of the unit. Cybernetic Culture Research Unit was a name on a door in the Philosophy Department of Warwick University, UK, during the late 1990s. It was a rogue unit, blurring the borders between traditional scholarship, cyberpunk sci-fi, and music journalism. Its frenzied interdisciplinary activity, including the Virtual Futures and Virotechnology conferences and the journal Abstract Culture, disturbed Warwick's Philosophy Department, resulting in the termination of the unit. Antonio Negri is a philosopher, essay writer, and teacher. A political and social activist in the 1960s and 1970s in Italy, he has taught political science for many years and has written numerous books on political philosophy, including Marx beyond Marx, The Savage Anomaly, Insurgencies, The Porcelain Workshop- For a New Grammar of Politics (Semiotext(e)), and, in collaboration with Michael Hardt, Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth. Luciana Parisi is a Senior Lecturer and runs the MA program in Interactive Media- Critical Theory and Practice at the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. Reza Negarestani is an Iranian philosopher best known for pioneering the genre of ""theory-fiction"" with his book Cyclonopedia. (Urbanomic/Sequence Press).
Reviews for #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader
An engaging, eccentric anthology...it's refreshing to encounter a left project for the future that wants to reclaim the idea of technology, industry and planet-scale thinking. -J.J. Charlesworth, ArtReview
