Benjamin Noys

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."

Accelerationism and Capitalism

Malign Velocities

A Critique of Contemporary Continental Theory

Persistence of the Negative

Against the need for speed, Malign Velocities tracks acceleration as the symptom of the ongoing crises of capitalism. 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.

An original and compelling critique of contemporary Continental theory through a rehabilitation of the negative.

'Communisation', the contributors behind this engaging new analysis suggest, is the spectre of the immediate struggle to abolish capitalism and conventional notions of the state. Currently evolving on the terrain of capitalism are the new practices of 'human strike', where autonomous communes, occupation and insurrection are argued to have attacked the alienations of modern times. Bringing together voices from inside and outside these currents, this treats communisation as a problem to be explored rather than a solution.

Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles

Communization and Its Discontents

Western culture has always been obsessed with death, but now death has taken on a new, anonymous form. The 20th Century saw the mass production of corpses through war and the triumph of technology over the human body. The new millennium has opened with global terrorism and the suspension of all human rights in far-flung prison camps. We live in an age of panic, when the fear of death at any time and in any place is present. And we live in an age of apathy towards both science and institutional politics, an age which has sanctioned the rise of techno-medical and political powers which can deny our control over our own bodies and lives and the lives of others. The Culture of Death explores this moment to analyse our exposure to death in modern culture.

Benjamin Noys

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