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#Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader
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 détourne it, but to accelerate and exacerbate its uprooting, alienating, decoding, abstractive tendencies.
The term was coined to designate a certain nihilistic alignment of theory with the excess and abandon of capitalist culture, and the associated performative aesthetic of texts that seek to become immanent to the very process of alienation. Developing at the dawn of contemporary neoliberal consensus, the uneasy status of this impulse, between subversion and acquiescence, between theoretical purchase and aesthetic enjoyment, constitutes the core problematic of accelerationism.
Since the 2013 publication of Williams's and Srnicek's #Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics, the term has been adopted to name a set of new theoretical enterprises that aim to conceptualise non-capitalist futures outside of traditional marxist critiques and regressive, decelerative or restorative solutions.
#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 anonymous units like CCRU and SWITCH, across the cultural underground of the 80s (rave, acid house, Terminator and Bladerunner) 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 largely unexplored 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 Kapital. This is a legacy shot through with contradictions, yet urgently galvanized today by the poverty of 'reasonable' contemporary political alternatives.
The term was coined to designate a certain nihilistic alignment of theory with the excess and abandon of capitalist culture, and the associated performative aesthetic of texts that seek to become immanent to the very process of alienation. Developing at the dawn of contemporary neoliberal consensus, the uneasy status of this impulse, between subversion and acquiescence, between theoretical purchase and aesthetic enjoyment, constitutes the core problematic of accelerationism.
Since the 2013 publication of Williams's and Srnicek's #Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics, the term has been adopted to name a set of new theoretical enterprises that aim to conceptualise non-capitalist futures outside of traditional marxist critiques and regressive, decelerative or restorative solutions.
#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 anonymous units like CCRU and SWITCH, across the cultural underground of the 80s (rave, acid house, Terminator and Bladerunner) 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 largely unexplored 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 Kapital. This is a legacy shot through with contradictions, yet urgently galvanized today by the poverty of 'reasonable' contemporary political alternatives.
536 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 15, 2020
Old texts on capitalist mode of production and modernisation (Marx, Veblen, Deleuze&Guattari, Lyotard, Ballard) refurbished for political effect and new, diverse material piled on top of that - and it's all to be thought of as a commentary on "#Accelerate, manifesto for an accelerationist politics" (2013) by Williams and Srnicek, reprinted in the book. For sure, this is a mixed bag.
Classics aside, of the new texts written for this publication, Negri provides interesting insights on the original manifesto, but he seems way too gentle to really engage with it. Terranova's and Parisi's takes on algorithms and computational design are interesting but short and introductory in spirit. Singleton finds gripping material in 19th century Russian cosmist Nikolai Fedorov, but is at loss for what to make of it. Brassier's prose is crystal clear, but the author seems a bit too distant for his subject.
Most dissapointing of all, Negarestani does little more than an intellectual sleight-of-hand in his magisterial essay on "The Labor of the Inhuman". Peel the paint and it seems to be a variant of the old "enlightenment for enlightenment's sake" argument, and really quite alarming in it's substance. Of the older, but not strictly classic texts, 90's cyber culture figure Nick Land and his ilk are historically interesting but read now Land's texts contain so much techno mumbo jumbo that they get too heavy to be digested. Mark Fisher's foaming in the mouth rants against "embourgeoisified state-subsidised grumbling that so often calls itself academic Marxism" might be well placed in the context of those days, but to be written in 2010s - I'm not sure if they hit the mark at all.
My advice for the reader would be to take what you need and don't go for the big picture - there might be none. For somebody trying to map the phenomena #accelerationism and speculative realism (though the latter seems to be a bit of a taboo by now) I do recommend Robin Mackay's and Armen Avanessians "Introduction" - longest text in the book by far, by the way. Mackay and Avanessian do a good conceptual job in their attempt to build up a narrative and don't shy away of the difficult question concerning the core of it all.
Classics aside, of the new texts written for this publication, Negri provides interesting insights on the original manifesto, but he seems way too gentle to really engage with it. Terranova's and Parisi's takes on algorithms and computational design are interesting but short and introductory in spirit. Singleton finds gripping material in 19th century Russian cosmist Nikolai Fedorov, but is at loss for what to make of it. Brassier's prose is crystal clear, but the author seems a bit too distant for his subject.
Most dissapointing of all, Negarestani does little more than an intellectual sleight-of-hand in his magisterial essay on "The Labor of the Inhuman". Peel the paint and it seems to be a variant of the old "enlightenment for enlightenment's sake" argument, and really quite alarming in it's substance. Of the older, but not strictly classic texts, 90's cyber culture figure Nick Land and his ilk are historically interesting but read now Land's texts contain so much techno mumbo jumbo that they get too heavy to be digested. Mark Fisher's foaming in the mouth rants against "embourgeoisified state-subsidised grumbling that so often calls itself academic Marxism" might be well placed in the context of those days, but to be written in 2010s - I'm not sure if they hit the mark at all.
My advice for the reader would be to take what you need and don't go for the big picture - there might be none. For somebody trying to map the phenomena #accelerationism and speculative realism (though the latter seems to be a bit of a taboo by now) I do recommend Robin Mackay's and Armen Avanessians "Introduction" - longest text in the book by far, by the way. Mackay and Avanessian do a good conceptual job in their attempt to build up a narrative and don't shy away of the difficult question concerning the core of it all.
September 3, 2016
i like it, but it's also bad, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
November 26, 2014
Everything is right about this book. Even the format is radical. It's a bit smaller than the usual monograph - but thicker. There is a physical feeling that we are reading a trashy 1970s airport novel.
But this book is the furthest point from a trashy 1970s airport novel you can imagine.
It is a reader. That means, after a powerful introduction by the editors, that extracts from key theorists of acceleration are presented. These move from Marx to Reed. While these writers are disparate, this book has a strong sense of a really radical manifesto to get inside neoliberalism and blow it to hell.
The final third of the book takes on the consequences to humans (and humanity) of the deterritorialization of capitalism. Technology is a trope, motif and object throughout the book. It is an ambivalent force: part of modernity but also dehumanizing.
This is a great book to read in one hit, or to carry in bag and read a chapter a day on the train. It will leave you angry. And it will leave you wanting to get inside the system and do something.
But this book is the furthest point from a trashy 1970s airport novel you can imagine.
It is a reader. That means, after a powerful introduction by the editors, that extracts from key theorists of acceleration are presented. These move from Marx to Reed. While these writers are disparate, this book has a strong sense of a really radical manifesto to get inside neoliberalism and blow it to hell.
The final third of the book takes on the consequences to humans (and humanity) of the deterritorialization of capitalism. Technology is a trope, motif and object throughout the book. It is an ambivalent force: part of modernity but also dehumanizing.
This is a great book to read in one hit, or to carry in bag and read a chapter a day on the train. It will leave you angry. And it will leave you wanting to get inside the system and do something.
December 31, 2017
Review forthcoming...
September 17, 2018
A cohesive procession of reflections on the gradual disappearance of nature in the production of the world, and its correlation with the rise of machination in all of life's facets. Leave it to Urbanomic to cobble together such an impressive and novel collection. Mackay's interests in accelerationism is beyond the typical socio-cultural analysis, and instead focuses on the uncovering of object-oriented ontology provided by the rise of the machine. For example, instead of including McLuhan, Virilio or Benjamin, we instead get treated to J.G. Ballard, Mark Fisher and Deleuze/Guattari, writers who see the actor as a product of processes, and the increasingly procedural ways in which the world is formatted to erase us.
I may imagine that the typical reader is, like me, completely unfamiliar with most of the theorists introduced in the second half of the collection. But the way that this collection progresses really introduces the later ideas wonderfully.
I may imagine that the typical reader is, like me, completely unfamiliar with most of the theorists introduced in the second half of the collection. But the way that this collection progresses really introduces the later ideas wonderfully.
October 1, 2014
#ACCELERATE# presents itself as a genealogy (in the Foucauldian-Nietzschean sense) of an "accelerationist" current that is only now beginning to consciously recognise itself as such, but what it actually is is a rather cynical attempt to fabricate a philosophical respectability for a rather weak and shaky set of ideas through selective misappropriation of texts. The excerpt from Anti-Oedipus, for example, is a best a rather tenuous support for what later appears as accelerationism proper, and is in any case, in its implied meaning here, rather at odds with arious ecologically minded statements elsewhere in AO and Mille Plateaux, and particularly with Guattari's later explicitly ecological work. Less a genealogy, than a self-serving bricolage then, albeit one with some interesting texts (as well as some turgid and boring ones).
July 6, 2018
Not so much a genealogy as a fabrication of a canon, what many an accelerationist would unabashedly dub a hyperstition, albeit more retroactive. But what can we say of it? One can find within it interesting texts, particularly those by the post-'68 French philosophers, as well as those sprawling out of the Ccru of '90s Warwick (and Fisher's on-point summary). Yet there seems to be a disconnect between the libidinal-desiring acceleration, which would even entail an acceleration of the worst (le pire), politico-economically—and it is this, found in Deleuze–Lyotard–Baudrillard, that Benjamin Noys originally coined as accelerationism, and which also invokes the affirmation of Nietzsche and his fragment on "The Strong of the Future," obviously fed through a Klossowskian lens (a lineage—are affirmationism (another Noys coinage) and accelerationism just French Nietzscheanism?—notably absent in this little reader)—a disconnect, then, between this and much of the material of the contemporary discourse of accelerationism, which would much rather invoke rationalism, productivism (postcapitalism won't come easy—sad!), and (in/post/trans)humanism, with its orations to futurity, science-fiction, and Russian cosmism. A tendency, as Patricia Reed notes in the final text, more of reorienting than of accelerating proper.
"So," to quote Dolce & Gabbana, "which is the revolutionary path? Is there one?" ("[T]he truth is that we haven't seen anything yet"?)
"So," to quote Dolce & Gabbana, "which is the revolutionary path? Is there one?" ("[T]he truth is that we haven't seen anything yet"?)
July 12, 2021
A fantastic genealogy of accelerationist thinking. Very well put together.
September 26, 2018
Key Read
December 10, 2020
Different reasoning leading to the same post-modern neo-Marxist conclusions.
January 2, 2021
I guess I'm left with one major question: Isn't it antithetical to accelerationism to create a accelerationist genealogy?
From Marx to Land, this is a drawing of the ideas that would form accelerationism, or rather, the ideas that would from the abstract accelerationism. As concrete as some of the ideas put forth in these essays and snippets, it's also obvious, and somehow contradictory, that the more concrete ideas get, the more diffuse they appear.
As idealistic as Marx was in his plans for a post-capitalist society, it was obvious where Marx wanted his ideals to go.
This is contrasted with Nick Land, that has very concrete criticisms of modernity, but his ideals, at least at the time, were not clear.
One last thing to keep in mind when reading this compilation, is that the editors have a clear political framing for compiling these texts. At the time, this more left-leaning framing might have made sense. But reading this in 2020-2021, where the accelerationist ideas have found more of a home among reactionary groups, this framing ring rather hollow. Especially the last essay in the book seems almost ominous in it's naïve optimism.
But as much as I critique this compilation, I also found it a very enjoyable read, and it gave me a lot of recommendations for further studies. Also, the framing might be something to critique, but I can't falter the way the editors did it. The texts where all very well selected for their framing purposes.
From Marx to Land, this is a drawing of the ideas that would form accelerationism, or rather, the ideas that would from the abstract accelerationism. As concrete as some of the ideas put forth in these essays and snippets, it's also obvious, and somehow contradictory, that the more concrete ideas get, the more diffuse they appear.
As idealistic as Marx was in his plans for a post-capitalist society, it was obvious where Marx wanted his ideals to go.
This is contrasted with Nick Land, that has very concrete criticisms of modernity, but his ideals, at least at the time, were not clear.
One last thing to keep in mind when reading this compilation, is that the editors have a clear political framing for compiling these texts. At the time, this more left-leaning framing might have made sense. But reading this in 2020-2021, where the accelerationist ideas have found more of a home among reactionary groups, this framing ring rather hollow. Especially the last essay in the book seems almost ominous in it's naïve optimism.
But as much as I critique this compilation, I also found it a very enjoyable read, and it gave me a lot of recommendations for further studies. Also, the framing might be something to critique, but I can't falter the way the editors did it. The texts where all very well selected for their framing purposes.
April 21, 2023
Superb volume for anyone interested in some of the more recent theoretical developments of the critique of Capitalism in a non-orthodox fashion. The short essays that comprise this “reader” are all very brief and work as an introductory piece for each of the authors. The different authors that appear in this volume range from classic thinkers from the tradition like Marx and moves along to include more contemporary figures like P. K. Dick, Deleuze & Guattari, Lyotard, Land, CCRU, etc. Culminating in texts from the third wave of accelerationist theorists like Snircek & Williams, Negrestani and Brassier to mention some of them. The theoretical axis that binds all of them is to think about acceleration which is an ever-expanding global interdisciplinary (with interests on the new production of arts through technology and the like) movement that has grown since the rise of the Speculative Realism movement in the first decade of the 2000s. It’s a refreshing volume for understanding the 21st century and a new critique of Capitalism that‘s worth the read for anyone interested in a radical breakthrough from our current global situation. Highly recommended, but also highly technical. Do some research before diving in to get a better grip on the themes being discussed.
March 13, 2017
While a couple of the pieces included in this reader felt deliberately impenetrable to a greater or lesser extent, there were a number of more interesting and accessible reads, particularly in the latter sections of more recent writing. The overall curation of the selections was rather thoughtful as well, and the chronological ordering of the sections successfully lent appropriate color towards the end, in my reading.
August 24, 2018
Great concept, interesting compilation and a wide range on the timeline of writings regarding this topic. Great, but no easy read & inspiring to dig deeper into Accelerationism.
-2* beacuse I percieve some of the writings are included due to a political dogma rather than to the topic.
-2* beacuse I percieve some of the writings are included due to a political dogma rather than to the topic.
June 28, 2014
A fascinating and wide-ranging selection of essays on accelerationism. A wonderful introduction to the subject, while not remaining introductory per se.
December 8, 2024
An ultimately disappointing collection of texts around a stillborn movement, based on a concept which doesn't know what it wants to be (qua concept - for it remains a pure movement of desire). Patricia Reed's critique of Williams and Srnicek's manifesto is a welcome inclusion, bringing to the fore some of the key faults of the attempt at launching a movement upon little more than a word, a name. The very idea of a "Left Accelerationism" is patently worthless (as much so as a "Right Accelerationism"), for, as Nick Land rightly notes in his text, "Templexity," acceleration knows no right no left, having no place upon the human political scale - acceleration is force and effect, beyond the yoke of human ends, deriving as it does from the machinic desires un(der)writing the human as but a passing fiction, a failure in effect.
The value of this anthology lies almost exclusively in the texts of the first two sections, especially the translations of French texts contemporanious to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, previously unavailable elsewhere. But the texts of the third section are mostly embarrassing (the texts of the CCRU chosen read like teenage blatherings thinly veiled as academic thought), and those of the fourth are a mishmash of pointless pieces and neo-rationalist reiterations of Brandomian boredom wearing an inhuman mask.
Urbanomic has really fallen, and one wonders if Land's departure - and its subsequent mourning soon passed - did not sound the death knell for a bygone movement never to come. A Land defanged accelerates nothing, accelerating towards nothing, having lost the fiction amidst the plotting unto no end.
The value of this anthology lies almost exclusively in the texts of the first two sections, especially the translations of French texts contemporanious to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, previously unavailable elsewhere. But the texts of the third section are mostly embarrassing (the texts of the CCRU chosen read like teenage blatherings thinly veiled as academic thought), and those of the fourth are a mishmash of pointless pieces and neo-rationalist reiterations of Brandomian boredom wearing an inhuman mask.
Urbanomic has really fallen, and one wonders if Land's departure - and its subsequent mourning soon passed - did not sound the death knell for a bygone movement never to come. A Land defanged accelerates nothing, accelerating towards nothing, having lost the fiction amidst the plotting unto no end.
January 15, 2025
shit, that was exhausting, but it is essential by all means reading to grasp utopian ideology of /acc and its foundations. this idea is more complicated than just 'speeding up contradictions of capitalism so it will colapse', even more, it was never that. it is philosophy of machines, philosophy of technology, philosophy or a radical change, philosophy of disruption of status quo, philosophy of utopia.
We may not like it at all, we may disagree with some points, we may say not everything is sufficient here, we may discuss how Land finally became a snake and neoreactionary, we may talk how the name of /acc have been appropriated by other neoreactionaries, fash and racist terrorists and pathetic techbros from Sillicon Valley, but shit, it is strongly grounded philosophical standpoint if someone is actually engaged with its literature with many different branches of feminist or black issues. It is looking into the future, and it is needed the most now.
We may not like it at all, we may disagree with some points, we may say not everything is sufficient here, we may discuss how Land finally became a snake and neoreactionary, we may talk how the name of /acc have been appropriated by other neoreactionaries, fash and racist terrorists and pathetic techbros from Sillicon Valley, but shit, it is strongly grounded philosophical standpoint if someone is actually engaged with its literature with many different branches of feminist or black issues. It is looking into the future, and it is needed the most now.
January 1, 2023
One of the better theory readers out there. Compiled chronologically, one is taken through the first hints of an accelerationist entity's emergence through the traces it left throughout the fringes of political theory and science fiction. A unique kind of horror story, where the reader is dared to believe it is not real, or at the very least, that it can't hurt us. Of course, this ambience is undercut as the last few texts, for better or worse, desperately assure us that a kind of reformed liberalism will help us navigate through this. Don't look too closely at the so-called 'left/accelerationists' though, because by testimony of the rest of the book, what stares back at us is nothing but the welcoming maws of the machine.
December 2, 2021
This being a collection of vastly different authors united by very general views on the relations of society and technology (with the bar basically being what is liked by certain people) guarantees that this is going to be a mixed bag. It also guarantees room for disagreement on what could have been included or what could have been left out. But the topic is also very interesting and this reader can be useful as a collection. It peaked my interest a lot of time at least, adding many new authors to my to-read list.
October 8, 2021
So i read two somewhat smaller books, but their where two so I do want to count them in my reader goal.
One of them was called accelerate so... Thought this was fitting. But the books are not on wattpad. So this review is NOT for this book. !
One of them was called accelerate so... Thought this was fitting. But the books are not on wattpad. So this review is NOT for this book. !
August 13, 2020
The early texts are good, but most of the contemporary studies are garbage
January 18, 2021
Mostly the relationship between political and technological acceleration
July 15, 2021
Good until left accelerationism infests the book towards the end. Absolute boring Marxist drivel.
August 22, 2021
Some of the essays were spectacularly informative, insightful, and illuminating, and some were so theory dense and filled with nonsensical academic posturing gibberish. I loved every word.
January 16, 2023
Savannah
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2023
An essential reading for the modern Cyberpunk.
Want to read
April 15, 2024LOL.
March 31, 2025
these guys are nuts and not in a cool way
June 9, 2025
I give three stars to things I don’t understand
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews