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. Talks by Ray Brassier, Mark Fisher, Alex Andrews, Benjamin Noys, Nick Srnicek, and Alex Williams. Audio recordings. [1]
  • Croatian trans. of Brassier's talk, 2013. (Croatian)
• 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. Organised by Diann Bauer, Joshua Johnson, Suhail Malik, Mohammad Salemy, and Keith Tilford. Online seminars: Deneb Kozikoski, Anthony Paul Smith, Peter Wolfendale.
• Reinventing Horizons symposium, Tranzitdisplay, Prague, 18-19 Mar 2016. Organised by Display, Zbyněk Baladrán, Vítek Bohal, Václav Janoščík, Dustin Breitling, and Mohammad Salemy.
• A Government of Times symposium-performance, Halle 14, Leipzig, 28 May 2016. Curated by Aliocha Imhoff and Kantuta Quirós.
• Faster/Slower/Future, Towards Postcapitalism conference, Kaaistudio's, Brussels, 22-23 Sep 2016. Organised by Kaaitheater Brussels.

Authors, Initiatives

• 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).
• Benjamin Noys, Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism, Zero Books, Oct 2014. Review: Wark.

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.
  • "Gramatika neoliberalizma", trans. Tomislav Žilić, Libra Libera 33, Dec 2013, pp 49-53. (Croatian)
• 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 Exchange 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.
  • "Brzine bijega", trans. Lana Pukanić, Libra Libera 33, Dec 2013, pp 24-31. (Croatian)
• McKenzie Wark, "#Celerity: A Critique of the Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics", May 2013. [4]
  • "#Brzina: Kritika Manifesta za akceleracionističku politiku", trans. Helena Šintić, Libra Libera 33, Dec 2013, pp 41-48. (Croatian)
• 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. (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.
• Yves Citton, "Accélérer la gauche écologiste ?", Multitudes 56 (2014), pp 13-21. (French) [5]

Selected books and essays

• Nick Land's blog posts on acceleration.
• Gean Moreno, "Notes on the Inorganic", e-flux 31 (Jan 2012).
• Alex Williams, "Escape Velocities", e-flux 46 (Jun 2013).
  • "Brzine bijega", trans. Lana Pukanić, Libra Libera 33, Dec 2013, pp 24-31. (Croatian)
• 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).
  • "Le travail de l'abstraction. Sept thèses transitionnelles sur le marxisme et l'accélérationnisme", trans. Yves Citton, Multitudes 56 (2014), pp 49-55. [6] (French)
• 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.
• Ray Brassier, "Wandering Abstraction", Mute, 13 Feb 2014.
• Tiziana Terranova, "Red Stack Attack!", Quaderni di San Precario blog, 12 Feb 2014, [7] [8]; 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.
• Frédéric Neyrat, "Critique du géo-constructivisme. Anthropocène & géo-ingénierie", Multitudes 56 (2014), pp 37-47. [9] (French)
• Nick Srnicek, "Accelerationism: Epistemic, Economic, Political", in Speculative Aesthetics, eds. Robin Mackay, James Trafford and Luke Pendrell, Urbanomic, 2014, pp 48-53. [10] [11]
• Steven Shaviro, No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism, University of Minnesota Press, Jan 2015, 86 pp. [12]
• Nina Power, "Decapitalism, Left Scarcity, and the State", Fillip 20 (Spring 2015). Based on a paper presented at the Radical Philosophy conference, Berlin, 16 Jan 2015.
• Benjamin Noys, "Accelerated Substance Abuse", &&& Journal 0 (Jan 2015). Presented at #Accelerate seminar, The New Centre for Research & Practice, 1 Oct 2014.
• Ivan Niccolai, "A Response to Benjamin Noys’ Critique of Accelerationism", &&& Journal 0 (Jan 2015).
• David Cunningham, "A Marxist Heresy? Accelerationism and Its Discontents", Radical Philosophy 191 (May-Jun 2015), pp 29-38.
• Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work, London: Verso, Sep 2015, 256 pp. [13]. Online symposium (Shapiro, J Kay, S Lewis & DM Bell, A Hirst & Houseman, Hoover). Reviews: Wark (Public Seminar 2015), Lowrie (LARB 2015), more.
• Rob Myers, "Accelerationist Art", Furtherfield, 7 Apr 2016.
• Fred Turner, "On Accelerationism", Public Books, 1 Sep 2016. Nettime discussion.
• Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, Polity, 2017.

Anthologies

• e-flux 46: "Accelerationist Aesthetics", ed. Gean Moreno, Jun 2013. Texts by Williams, Shaviro, Bratton, Roche, Bifo, Fisher, Singleton, Battaglia, MacCormack, and Russell.
• Armen Avanessian (ed.), #Akzeleration, Berlin: Merve, Dec 2013, 96 pp. Texts by Avanessian, Bifo, Land, McCormack, Noys, Pasquinelli, Srnicek, and Williams. Publisher, Introduction. Review: Drees. (German)
  • #Acceleratie, trans. Menno Grootveld and Samuel Vriezen, Leesmagazijn, Nov 2014, 101 pp. [14] (Dutch)
• Robin Mackay, Armen Avanessian (eds.), #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, Falmouth: Urbanomic, and Berlin: Merve, May 2014, 536 pp, PDF, ARG. Texts by Fisher, Srnicek and Williams, Negri, Terranova, Parisi, Negarestani, Brassier, Singleton, Land, Reed, Bauer, and the section on "a genealogy of accelerationism". Publisher. Reviews: Harris (New Inquiry), Charlesworth (ArtReview), O'Sullivan (Mute), Andrews (Review31), Read (Frieze). Commentaries: Wark (Public Seminar), Cunningham (Radical Philosophy).
• Armen Avanessian, Robin Mackay (eds.), #Akzeleration#2, trans. Moritz Gansen and Hannah Wallenfels, Berlin: Merve, 2014, 176 pp. Publisher. Texts by Brassier, Land, Negri, Parisi, Srnicek, Terranova and Williams. (German)
• Matteo Pasquinelli (ed.), Gli algoritmi del capitale. Accelerazionismo, macchine della conoscenza e autonomia del comune, Verona: Ombrecorte, Sep 2014. Texts by Williams and Srnicek, Negri, Bifo, Pasquinelli, Dyer-Witheford, Bunz, Harney, Terranova, Vercellone, and Marazzi. [15] Review: Fumagalli (2014). (Italian)
• Armen Avanessian, Helen Hester (eds.), dea ex machina, trans. Stephan Geene, Gesine Strempel and Jennifer Sophia Theodor, Berlin: Merve, 2015, 160 pp. Texts by Rosi Braidotti, Shulamith Firestone, Donna Haraway, Laboria Cuboniks, Lisa Nakamura, Alexandra Pirici, Nina Power, Paul B. Preciado, Raluca Voinea. [16] Book launch: Berlin. Commentary: Fox (2015).(German)
• Václav Janoščík, Vít Bohal, Dustin Breitling (eds.), Reinventing Horizons, Prague: tranzit.cz, 2016. Introduction. [17] [18]
• Ed Keller, Tim Matts, Benjamin Noys (eds.), Dark Glamor: Accelerationism and the Occult, 2 vols., Punctum Books, (forthcoming 2016). Introduction, Contributors.

Journal issues

• "Akceleracionizam", section in Libra Libera 33, intro. Ante Jerić, Zagreb: Autonomna Tvornica Kulture, Dec 2013, pp 11-55. (Croatian)
• &&& Journal 0: "Tachophobia // Tachomania", Spring 2015.
• A2 6: "Akceleracionismus", Prague, 16 Mar 2016. [19] (Czech)
• Cesura // Acceso 3: "Sticky Tics, Unclocked Territory: Accelerationist aesthetics and music", forthcoming 2016. [20]
• Inter/Alia: A Journal of Queer Studies, Special Issue on Accelerofeminisms, eds. Rafal Majka and Michael O’Rourke, forthcoming. [21]

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. (German)
• "crash and burn: debating accelerationism. Alexander Galloway interviews Benjamin Noys", 3:AM Magazine, 4 November 2014.
• Mohammad Salemy, Nick Srnicek, and Alex Williams, "Speed Trials: A Conversation about Accelerationist Politics", Fillip 20 (Spring 2015).

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 Uberty.org
• 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, pp 251-274, ARG.
• Nick Land, "Meltdown", Abstract Culture 1, Coventry: CCRU, 1997, [22]; repr. in Land, Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier, Urbanomic, 2011, pp 441-459. [23]. 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, [24]; repr. in #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, eds. Armen Avanessian and Robin Mackay, Urbanomic, 2014.

Documentary film

• Hyperstition, dir. Christopher Roth with Armen Avanessian, 2015, 102 min. 15-minute excerpt. [25] [26]

See also

• Cybernetic Culture Research Unit
• Karl Marx