Digital Hyperstition

by CCRU, Daniel Barker (Contributor), Melanie Newton (Contributor)

Digital Hyperstition is the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit’s definitive work of indisciplinary microcultural agitation. This explosive document (a publication of the "swarm-journal" Abstract Culture) brings together recovered hyperstitional episodes reported by Melanie Newton, Echidna Stillwell, and other students and victims of Lemurian time sorcery, with texts on popular numerics, afromathematics, polyrhythmic aquassassination, and Y2K panic. Also contains a presentation of Pandemonium, the complete system of time sorcery, authoritative rules for the games of Decadence and Subdecadence, and an invaluable CCRU glossary.

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Science Fiction, Horror

80 pages, Saddle stitch

First published February 1, 1999

About the author

The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU, or Ccru) was an experimental cultural theorist collective formed in late 1995 at Warwick University, England and gradually separated from academia until it dissolved in 2003.

Reviews

[João · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep underground dementia of icebergculture emerged with Ccru, the literature's equivalent to the rave scene flourishing in the 90s secret jungles of the hypercultural matrix "(...) but for those, like myself, who had fallen under Freud's spell, the compulsion to search for the hidden logics that guide and structure supposedly random manias is irresistible." Thus, the encoded replica (digital world) was built as the pinnacle of esoteric alchemy - gruesome psychic leakage, not a new layer - and it continues to consume all matter and forms. An inescapable self-imposed nightmare.

In a frenzy, words are pure fractal-delirium, perceptions get captured by a Burroughs-esque style of cadence slashing over a world that not even a Gibson could predict: the future that has already passed and secretly devoured reality and sense of time - the true Cthulhu of philosophy. We have barely any words or machinery to describe it. That is the ultimate failure of humanity - our own thoughts surpassed our ability to grasp them and they are their own behemoth-graphs and leviathan-systems now, roaming and learning in the cosmos. What happens in Digital Hyperstition? An attempt to make progress to escape the web by developing the linguistic machines, wetware and code to tackle such issues.

This book is a collection of essays delving into a myriad of schizo-information discharges in a Deleuzian fashion. Some of the topics addressed are: evolutionary and cultural critique of the bipedal posture; microcosmos of apocalyptic panic and millennial reset clocks; swarms of vinyl scratching in an ecological analysis of the soundscape; ancient afrofuturism (stolen tech developments in geometry, architecture, and computation theory); cryptographic accelerationism and its relation to hallucinatory numograms and occultism; Indonesian dream sorcery, oniric echidnas and the uncanny prophecies about Krakatoa; fashionable paranoia, world politics and cocaine's cartels; the interface between Kant's concept of time and moebian ourobouros time-machines; and the circuitry-maze of Pandemonium, a demon divination system (or what are holes and gaps, limits and reflections, and their purpose in our realm) with 45 degrees of freedom.

[Tvrtko Balić · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ramblings with varying amounts of hidden sense.

[Rhizomal Ennui · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing important to understand about KGoth and Ccru culture is it put a really heavy emphasis unto creating a mythology of both what is to come and empirical cybernetic divisions of the world. This book (zine?) talks about spinal time codes (the fact that no writer ever nobody expand on machine development that is modeled on spinal cords instead of natural selection or brains [cellular organization discourse exists I think] ) Y2K apocalypticism via Jerusalem syndrome and the expected internet and computer breakdown.

The thing is they all are just whimsies once you get past the allure of new fantasy tropes (they are only sometimes new but Ccru proved truly innovative and philosophy defining on the scale of columbine massacre). Nothing happened on y2k, we are not getting Neochina, lemurian time missiles are nowhere to be seen. Reading Ccru in 2022 is equievelant to reading a nazi grimorie, its autistically fascinating but falls short of our reality it seems (reality doesnt fall behind literature ever, its the literature that always cheats on reality and then expects to have another bdsm session like nothing happened with new kinks to work through.).

The african numerical part is just plain annoying. Its literally the "white men draws schizophrenic connection between cultist tribal practices and insight about our world" meme. Wow good job! You found non linear time in antiquity , the collective that wrote this should have tried to read more books instead of antrophological studies which clearly harms the mind of anyone who dabbles with it.

[Felix De Backer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goede bundeling van geschriften door CCRU en handlangers. Variërend in evenwicht tussen theorie en fictie.

Het beruchte Numogram wordt hier ook enigszins helder belicht.

Niets is zo nonsensicaal als het lijkt!

[macintosh2000 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll need to read this again but overall it was a nice zine. About half I had already read in the CCRU collection, and reading it in the context that this zine puts all the work in provided a different perspective. Per usual CCRU collections, about half the pieces I liked while the others I found to either be nonsensical or I didn't have the expertise to fully understand it.

Grade: B
Recommended for: People looking for an introduction to the CCRU