The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) was an experimental
cultural theorist collective formed in late 1995 at
Warwick University
The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...
, England and gradually separated from academia until it dissolved in 2003. It garnered reputation for its idiosyncratic and surreal "theory-fiction" which incorporated
cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian Futurism, futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of low-life, lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial in ...
and
Gothic horror
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
, and its work has since had an online
cult following
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic ...
related to the rise in popularity of
accelerationism. The CCRU are strongly associated with their former leading members,
Sadie Plant,
Mark Fisher and
Nick Land.
Overview
The CCRU's work is characterized by loose, abstract theoretical writing combining elements of
cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian Futurism, futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of low-life, lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial in ...
and
Gothic horror
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...
with critical theory,
esotericism
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
,
numerology
Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...
and
demonology
Demonology is the study of demons within religious belief and myth. Depending on context, it can refer to studies within theology, religious doctrine, or pseudoscience. In many faiths, it concerns the study of a Classification of demons, hierarch ...
, which often interplay in their deployment of occult systems and surreal narratives.
One of the CCRU's predominant ideas is hyperstition, which Nick Land referred to as "the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies" where by means of esoteric cybernetic principles, certain ideas and beliefs that are initially incomprehensible (akin to superstitions) can covertly circulate through reality and establish cultural feedback loops that then drastically meld society, which they also referred to in total as "cultural production".
The CCRU's esoteric numerological cybernetic system for comprehending hyperstition, the Numogram, often appears in their writings alongside its circulatory zones and their respective demons.
In addition to drawing inspiration from
Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...
's ''
Anti-Oedipus'' and ''
A Thousand Plateaus'', to which references can be found in the CCRU's writings, the collective drew inspiration from writers including
H. P. Lovecraft,
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, hi ...
,
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass me ...
,
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowsh ...
,
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
,
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phil ...
and various other sources related to critical theory, science fiction,
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
and
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...
.
History
1993–1996
Theorist and researcher
Sadie Plant, working in the University of Warwick, formed the collective around 1993–1994 as a
cyberfeminist research group which initially only involved itself in studies and did not publish texts. Eventually, as she left her academic post, student and philosopher
Nick Land who had at the time recently published his monograph ''The Thirst for Annihilation'' became the driving force in determining its methods and ideas.
Other major contributors included
Kodwo Eshun
Kodwo Eshun (born 1967) is a British -Ghanaian writer, theorist and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his 1998 book ''More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction'' and his association with the art collective The Otolith Grou ...
,
Iain Hamilton Grant
Iain Hamilton Grant (born 21 November 1963, in Bristol) is a British philosopher. He is a senior lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol, United Kingdom. His research interests include ontology, European philosophy, German I ...
and Stephen Metcalf, as well as other colleagues whose research were inspired by emerging nihilist, psychoanalytic and materialist theory.
The connections made leading up to the formation of the CCRU and during its tenure eventually lead to the ''Virtual Futures'' conferences. The conferences, organised from 1994–96, were initially founded by Joan Broadhurst, Dan O’Hara, Otto Imken, Eric Cassidy, and postgraduate students under the aegis of the Warwick Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature.
[Simon Reynolds]
"Renegade Academia"
unpublished feature for Lingua Franca, 1999. Accessed 27 December 2014.
Stephen Metcalf was a central player in CCRU's creation. His essay "Autogeddon" is included in the 1998 Virtual Futures book published by Routledge, and in 1996, Metcalf translated, edited and published a collection of texts by
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his c ...
, ''Hammer of the Gods: Apocalyptic Texts for the Criminally Insane'', that reflected and influenced how Nietzsche was being read by those who formed the CCRU at the time.
1997–2003
The CCRU drastically took on new forms and became increasingly experimental under the direction of Land; it was not a sanctioned academic project. According to Robin Mackay, by around 1998, "the CCRU became quasi-cultish, quasi-religious". Mackay mentions having "left before it descended into sheer madness", with Iain Hamilton Grant asserting that the later excesses drove several members into mental breakdown.
The collective became increasingly unorthodox in its work, with its output including writing, performance events, music and collaborative art, and exploring
post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
,
cybernetics,
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...
,
rave culture, and
occult studies. The CCRU's written output was largely self-published in zines such as ''Collapse'' and ''Abstract Culture'', and many of these writings are maintained online on the website for the CCRU.
Land's antisocial behavior, reliance on
amphetamine
Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used ...
s, and increasingly experimental writing at this time led academics and contemporaries to distance themselves from him, until he eventually left his academic post.
As a consequence, the CCRU could no longer use space at, or claim affiliation with Warwick University. CCRU continued to operate from a flat in
Leamington Spa
Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply Leamington (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Priors, it grew into a spa town in the 18th century following ...
up until its disestablishment in 2003.
Members and affiliates
Following the departure of Plant whereupon the University of Warwick began to deny any relationship to the group, some of the CCRU's members have had an ongoing subcultural impact.
[Fisher, Mar]
"Nick Land: Mind Games." ''Dazed and Confused''
/ref>
Those who were affiliated with the CCRU during and after its time as part of the University of Warwick Philosophy department include philosophers Stephen Metcalf, Iain Hamilton Grant
Iain Hamilton Grant (born 21 November 1963, in Bristol) is a British philosopher. He is a senior lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol, United Kingdom. His research interests include ontology, European philosophy, German I ...
, Ray Brassier and Reza Negarestani
Reza Negarestani (born 1977) is an Iranian philosopher and writer, known for "pioneering the genre of 'theory-fiction' with his book" ''Cyclonopedia'' which was published in 2008. It was listed in Artforum as one of the best books of 2009. Negare ...
; cultural theorists Mark Fisher and Kodwo Eshun
Kodwo Eshun (born 1967) is a British -Ghanaian writer, theorist and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his 1998 book ''More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction'' and his association with the art collective The Otolith Grou ...
; publisher and philosopher Robin Mackay; digital media theorists Luciana Parisi and Matthew Fuller; electronic music artist and Hyperdub
__NOTOC__
Hyperdub is a British, London-based electronic music record label and former webzine, founded by Steve Goodman, a.k.a. Kode9. The label was formed in 2004, and grew out of the UK's early dubstep scene. Artists signed to the label hav ...
label head Steve Goodman, a.k.a. Kode9; writer and theorist Anna Greenspan; sound theorist Angus Carlyle; novelist Hari Kunzru; and artists Jake and Dinos Chapman, among others.[Mackay, Robin (27 February 2013]
"Nick Land: An Experiment in Inhumanism."
''Divus''
Land and the CCRU collaborated frequently with the experimental art collective (Maggie Roberts and Ranu Mukherjee), notably on ''Syzygy'', a month-long multidisciplinary residency at Beaconsfield Contemporary Art gallery in South London, 1999, and on ''Cyberpositive'' (London: Cabinet, 1995), a set of texts which demonstrated CCRU's approaches.
Legacy and controversy
Urbanomic and Time Spiral Press published a collection of texts by the CCRU entitled ''CCRU: Writings 1997-2003'' in 2015, which garnered high reception and renewed interest in the collective's writings, mythology and overall approach to speculative fiction and philosophy. None of the work is attributed, but largely appears to be written by Land or under his strong influence, and although it states in the collection that it is a complete collection, this does not appear to be accurate.
The role played by Land, Plant, and the CCRU in the development of the fringe philosophy accelerationism is profound, and contemporary debates around it have concerned the viability and utility of Land's ideas with the CCRU. Accelerationism as it was deployed by CCRU is distinct from the term more frequently associated with Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams' text "Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics". Land himself makes this distinction clear in his commentary on the manifesto, but Land's version of accelerationism which he developed in the early 2010s notoriously incorporates esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
and anti-egalitarian
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
views, and since late 2016 has been increasingly recognized as an inspiration for the alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
.
American electronic musician Oneohtrix Point Never
Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer and songwriter. His music has experimented with tropes from various music genres and eras, s ...
, who credited the CCRU's writings as an influence on his 2018 song "Black Snow" from his album ''Age Of
''Age Of'' is the eighth studio album by American electronic producer Oneohtrix Point Never, released on June 1, 2018 on Warp Records. Recorded over two years, it is the first Oneohtrix Point Never album to prominently feature Daniel Lopatin's ow ...
'', initially received negative reception after acknowledging their influence. The artist later indicated that he was not interested in the alt-right transition that Land made, which happened after Land's involvement in the CCRU.
Further reading
The doctoral theses of several CCRU members and associates, submitted to Warwick University in the late 1990s and early 2000s, are available online and provide another perspective on the research of the CCRU.
* ''Alien Theory: The Decline of Materialism in the Name of Matter'' by Ray Brassier
* ''Capitalism's Transcendental Time Machine'' by Anna Greenspan
* ''Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction'' by Mark Fisher
* ''Touch-Sensitive: Cybernetic Images and Replicant Bodies in the Post-Industrial Age'' by Suzanne Livingston
* ''Turbulence: A Cartography of Postmodern Violence'' by Steve Goodman[Goodman, Steve (1999]
'Turbulence: a cartography of postmodern violence'
/ref>
See also
* Accelerationism
*Speculative realism
Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy (also known as post-Continental philosophy) that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of ...
References
{{Authority control
Accelerationism
Collectives
Critical theory
Cultural studies
Cyberpunk culture
Esotericists
Historical schools