Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

by Benjamin Noys
Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism

by Benjamin Noys

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Overview

We are told our lives are too fast, subject to the accelerating demand that we innovate more, work more, enjoy more, produce more, and consume more. That’s one familiar story. Another, stranger, story is told here: of those who think we haven’t gone fast enough. Instead of rejecting the increasing tempo of capitalist production they argue that we should embrace and accelerate it. Rejecting this conclusion, /Malign Velocities/ tracks this 'accelerationism' as the symptom of the misery and pain of labour under capitalism. Retracing a series of historical moments of accelerationism - the Italian Futurism; communist accelerationism after the Russian Revolution; the 'cyberpunk phuturism' of the ’90s and ’00s; the unconscious fantasies of our integration with machines; the apocalyptic accelerationism of the post-2008 moment of crisis; and the terminal moment of negative accelerationism - suggests the pleasures and pains of speed signal the need to disengage, negate, and develop a new politics that truly challenges the supposed pleasures of speed.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781782793007
Publisher: Collective Ink
Publication date: 10/31/2014
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 130
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Benjamin Noys is a UK-based theorist and critic who teaches at the University of Chichester.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Preface x

Introduction: 'Accelerate the Process' 1

The Bad New

The Destructive Element 5

Heretics of Marx 8

The Road of Excess 10

1 War Machines 13

Cruel Razors of Velocity 14

In the Lunapark 17

Mechanical Asceticism 19

Unknown Soldiers 22

2 Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!: Communist Accelerationism 24

In the Highest Degree Tragic 25

Iron Man 28

Tempos Decide Everything 31

Storming Heaven 33

3 Machine-Being 36

Mystical Machines 37

Rocketman 41

Sex-Work-Machine 46

4 Cyberpunk Phuturism 49

The Thrill and Threat of Materialization 51

Techno-Phuturism 52

Cybergothic Remix 54

Stasis Today 59

5 Apocalyptic Acceleration 63

Immanent Tendencies 64

Deviations of the Tendency 68

Through a Glass Darkly 70

6 Terminal Acceleration 73

Wallowing in the Mud 74

Barbarism or Barbarism? 77

7 Emergency Brake 83

Over the Dead Body of Capitalism 84

The Slob 86

Angelic Locomotives 88

Revolutions per Minute 90

Conclusion: The Moving Contradiction 93

A Supposedly Fun Thing 94

Impossible Labor 97

People are Afraid to Merge 100

Notes 105

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