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Where did the critical tradition of art go? Maybe that's the wrong
question. Because we know the answer. It went into spectacle. It went into
finance. It got privatized, democratized, scrutinized, defunded,
bureaucratized, then professionalized. The critical stick became a
seductive carrot. But maybe we don't have to see this only in terms of a
fall from grace. Maybe this is the time for a long-overdue realism that an
art field still in the thrall of modernist humanism struggles to avoid
recognizing. Isn't it strange how we are subjected to the most extreme
aspects of this new order and yet still suppress its most emergent
qualities? What if we suspend the guilt of lapsed certainties and
good-person compulsions for just a moment and take a look in the mirror?
What would we see? We might see velocity-driven psychotics ravaged and
dragged through sky and sludge, crying from revolution teargas and boring
discussions at the same time. We might see uneducated beasts using their
own bodies to mash culture with physics with economics with mysticism. We
might see a strange new form of human tumble out. For the Summer 2013 issue
of e-flux journal, we are very pleased to present Gean Moreno's
guest-edited issue on accelerationist aesthetics. Read it at the
beach!
—Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton
Vidokle
The entrenchment of neoliberal fundamentalism
has been accompanied by a desire to save whatever critical edge art
production can still muster. This has become increasingly pressing as art
becomes decor for the offices of hedge fund managers, and as the art
world—as David Graeber put it somewhere—mutates into "an
appendage to finance capitalism." The urgency to maintain a critical edge
has manifested itself variously: in a turn toward post-autonomia theories
that shed light on the position of the cultural producer within a
post-Fordist regime of labor; in the production of artifacts that engage
reflexively with the conditions of production, display, and circulation in
the art world; in recovery operations that target particular legacies, such
as those of politicized Conceptual art and structuralist or essayistic
filmmaking; in interventionist efforts that leave behind the commercial
circuits of art presentation altogether and attempt to work in the social
field itself. The common aim of all these efforts amounts to approaching
concrete conditions soberly, to being analytical and measured. A
subtractive logic is the general animating force: take
away—subjective imprint, gratuitous ornament, traces of skill,
commercial viability, ambivalent postures, ideological residue, and so
forth—until a potent and probing, if often flat-footed, proposal
crystallizes.
Past the edges of the art world, however, where
the condition of privilege doesn't haunt every gesture with the possibility
of contradiction, less "sober" engagements with the social are awake and on
the prowl. There may still be a line of thinking excited by subtraction and
formal rigor, but it is pitted against a proliferation of delirious and
maximalist redeployments of pop culture: salvage-punk fantasy literature
that probes obliquely, through gasoline fumes and/or unapologetic and slimy
monsters, points of resistance to late capitalism and residual
anthropocentric nostalgia; hauntological sonic archeology that calls up
utopian traces often muffled by electronic music, using the latter's
digital methods of production; B movies that are jacked into the
symptomatology of attention deficit disorders as a way to point to the
incessant modulations that subjectivity suffers through in control
societies; novels written and impossible buildings dreamt in code-language
that has mutated like a virus and swallowed the antibodies deployed to
eradicate it; soundings of the strange new territories—abyssal drops
for a self now revealed as not actually there in the way we had
thought—that neuroscience is carving open and sci-fi is mainlining
onto its pages; board-game strategizing adjusted to new transnational
networks and transformed, through the prism of "Total Design," into
geopolitical planning for the future. The gleefully overloaded and
hyperactive artifacts that result often feel less handicapped than art
objects that are safely ensconced in cultural institutions when attempting
to cognitively and affectively mapping the spaces and forces of
transnational capitalism. Perhaps these hyperactive artifacts can even
begin to map a hard-to-imagine Outside beyond transnational
capitalism.
One of the strands that participates in this
revved-up deployment of forms is what has been called "accelerationist
aesthetics," even if the precise traits that establish its parameters and
the full range of products that constitute it may still need to be
determined. The name was suggested by Steven Shaviro in his book
Post-Cinematic Affect. It derives from a political
program—accelerationism—which comes down from the Deleuze and
Guattari of Anti-Oedipus and the Lyotard of Libidinal
Economy, and which finds its most virulent and seductive expression in
the texts that British philosopher Nick Land began producing in the
1980s.
The term "accelerationism" was first coined by Benjamin
Noys in his book The Persistence of the Negative: A Critique of
Contemporary Continental Theory, as way to designate this tendency and
the political praxis it suggested. Shaviro, in turn, drew a distinction
between an accelerationist politics or praxis, and an accelerationist
aesthetics. As a politics, in the version that comes filtered through the
writings of Nick Land, accelerationism has been taken to task by a number
of theorists, including Ray Brassier, Alberto Toscano, Noys, and Shaviro
himself. However, as it is being questioned and bashed, there is a parallel
effort afoot to think accelerationism beyond the boundaries that were
established for it by Land et al. Reza Negarestani, Alex Williams, Nick
Snirneck, and Benjamin Singleton, among others, have been looking for ways
around the shortfalls and blindsides of an early accelerationism,
generating new ways to think through it, employing it less as a drive
toward meltdown than a cunning practice through which to capture and
redeploy existing energies and platforms in the service of a
re-universalized left politics.
Although often disparaged as a
political program, accelerationism, which early on performed its ideas most
notably through carefully crafted theory-fictions, has always had a robust
aesthetic side. It is here, in both a seductive performative dimension
(which spills into the everyday experiential field) and in the affective
range of these aesthetics—which ran for a time parallel to an
emerging cyberpunk, a fertile moment in electronic music and Cronenbergean
flesh-melts, and now begin to link up with interfacial skins, data
avalanches, predictive modeling at substantial scale and the
like—that we may find what sustains the desire to keep
accelerationism around even if some remain weary of it (or one of its
versions) as political theory or praxis.
Despite Shaviro's
effort to define it, the notion of an accelerationist aesthetics remains an
open problem, suggestively bubbling with, on the one hand, the potential to
provoke innovative cartographic exercises that probe unprecedented social
complexity and look for new liberatory programs that live up to it, and on
the other hand, dark intimations that this aesthetics is indissoluble from
the drive to deliberately exacerbate nihilistic meltdowns as the only
response to being dragged by the vertiginous speeds of a runaway
capitalism. It is working through the impasse between these two
extremes—and, more often than not, assuming the first at the expense
of the second—that fuels a number of the texts in this issue of
e-flux journal. The essays respond to two sets of questions:
What constitutes an accelerationist aesthetics? Is it
possible? Why would it matter? What should its scope be? And whose interest would it serve? Does such an aesthetics, if
possible or desirable, have anything to offer an art production exhausted
with sober formalisms and critique-based models that increasingly spin in
place, taking ineffective aim at the very protocols and institutions that
allow them to exist in the first place and that provide the infrastructure
for their sustainability?
Bound to these questions is a desire
to turn the horizon that currently sets the coordinates of what is deemed
of importance or value in art production into a porous border from which we
can, through pendular sweeps, reach out to adjacent neighborhoods of
thought and production and bring back fertile material. The returns on a
model deeply invested in critique, as it has been structured within the art
world, seem to dwindle at an alarming rate in the face of social and
economic relations that everywhere eat away at whatever autonomy the
cultural field ever had, or ever dreamed of. The very space of possibility
that this model once ushered in with such force seems to have been
foreclosed upon. Surely there are efforts still articulating themselves out
there, refusing the institution and its co-opting logic no less than the
market and its logic, sounding potential alternatives or prefigurations of
a different world. But, barring full conversion into activism, these
interventionist art exercises seem increasingly pushed to the cusp of
having to default on their promise.
The anxiety to shake things
up, in light of the disaster of a vanishing critical dimension, has to boil
over into something concrete at some point, and this, at least from where
I'm standing, demands a lateral move through the horizon that
currently determines the conditions in which art production is allowed to
unfold. It demands probing expeditions into other spaces, into terrains
from where the other side of what we are currently inside may begin to take
shape. And it demands the sharpening of robust synthesizing conceptual
tools to engage in fruitful cross-fades and appropriations. This issue of
e-flux journal is one of these probing expeditions.
—Gean Moreno
Alex
Williams—Escape Velocities It is Land who
exemplified, and indeed exacerbated, this strategy of "the worse the
better" to new heights of sick perversity in the 1990s. But what is of
interest to us is not so much questions of conceptual genealogy but the
resurgence of the idea: What is accelerationism today?
Steven
Shaviro—Accelerationist Aesthetics: Necessary Inefficiency in Times
of Real Subsumption This is why transgression no longer
works as a subversive aesthetic strategy. Or more precisely, transgression
works all too well as a strategy for amassing both "cultural
capital" and actual capital; and thereby it misses what I have been calling
the spectrality and epiphenomenality of the aesthetic. Transgression is now
fully incorporated into the logic of political economy.
Benjamin
Bratton—Some Trace Effects of the Post-Anthropocene: On
Accelerationist Geopolitical Aesthetics It measures its
situation from picoseconds to geologic temporal scopes, and nanometric to
comparative-planetary scales, and back again. It does not name in advance,
as some precondition for its mobilization today, all the terms with which
it will eventually have at its disposal in the future. The aporia of the
post-Anthropocene is not answered by the provocation of its naming, and
this is its strength over alternatives that identify too soon what exactly
must be gained or lost by our passage off the ledge.
François
Roche—Gre(Y)en (a history of local operative criticism) The machine collects the ingredients of this pathological period
and recycles them for productive use, from a highly dangerous no-man's land
abandoned since the end of the war (more than half a century ago), which
come back to its natural wildness, with the reappearing of elves, wizards,
witches, and harpies, and some new vegetal species. Legends and fairy tales
are transported out of the deepness of the forest, as in a Stalker
experiment to touch the unknown … x
Franco Berardi
Bifo—Accelerationism Questioned from the Point of View of the
Body The accelerationist stance, in my opinion, is an
extreme manifestation of the immanentist conception. Paradoxically, it also
seems to be a particular interpretation of the Baudrillardian assertion
that "the only strategy now is a catastrophic strategy." The train of
hypercapitalism cannot be stopped, it is going faster and faster, and we
can no longer run at the same pace.
Mark
Fisher—"A social and psychic revolution of almost inconceivable
magnitude": Popular Culture's Interrupted Accelerationist Dreams We live in a moment of profound cultural deceleration. The first
two decades of the current century have so far been marked by an
extraordinary sense of inertia, repetition, and retrospection, uncannily in
keeping with the prophetic analyses of postmodern culture that Fredric
Jameson began to develop in the 1980s.
Benedict
Singleton—Maximum Jailbreak But his project
extended further, and inevitably upwards, not least because an enlarging
human race would require more room to expand. Freedom from death would
extend to freedom from the earth itself, in quite practical terms.
Technologies must loosen the grip of gravity, not eradicating it per se but
meaning we would no longer be forced to obey it without question, no longer
subject to its necessity. Epic and unexpected, the creativity of
Fedorov's vision extended to its detail.
Debbora
Battaglia—Cosmic Exo-Surprise, or, When the Sky is (Really) Falling,
What's the Media to Do? Interesting things happen when
we translate this tactical orientation to the extreme environment of outer
space. For one thing, the effect that accelerationism aims for is already a
given there; the work of excessive velocity has been taken up by the
disinterested force-fields and entities of "space as itself," as I have
elsewhere termed it, and the results are already threatening global
communications and other infrastructures.
Patricia
MacCormack—Cosmogenic Acceleration: Futurity and Ethics The stranger the combinations are, the more inhuman they are; the
more inhuman, the more minoritarian. The futurity thus opened to
minoritarian recombinings—and not to the inclusion of
"types"—is more ethical. Ethics and the need for unnatural, strange
recombining are defined insofar as they are timely. Acceleration
aesthetics is about qualities of time as intensity. Thus, it is
arguably an ethical aesthetics.
John
Russell—Abysmal Plan: Waiting Until We Die and Radically Accelerated
Repetitionism Billions of tons of meat sliding down a
chute minced out into surplus value and programed into dull servitude of a
bloated homogenizing ruling class (the contingent rule of the bovine). Dark
capitalism … you got to crack a few eggs … I mean, exactly
how many fucking cuckoo clocks do you want anyway?
The
print edition of e-flux journal can now be found at: Amsterdam: De Appel / Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten
Andratx: CCA Andratx Antwerp: M HKA Museum van Hedendaagse
Kunst Athens: OMMU Århus: Aarhus Art Building
Auckland: split/fountain Austin: Arthouse at the Jones Center
Baden-Baden: Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden Banff: Walter
Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre Barcelona: Arts Santa Monica /
MACBA Basel: Kunsthalle Basel, Museum fur Gegenwartskunst Beijing
and Guangzhou: Vitamin Creative Space Beirut: 98weeks
Belgrade: Cultural Center of Belgrade Bergen: Bergen
Kunsthall / Rakett Berlin: b_books / Berliner Künstlerprogramm
– DAAD / do you read me? / Haus Der Kulturen der Welt / NBK, Neuer
Berliner Kunstverein / Pro qm Berlin and Zurich: Motto Bern:
Kunsthalle Bern / Lehrerzimmer Bialystok: Arsenal Gallery
Bielefeld: Bielefelder Kunstverein Birmingham: Eastside
Projects / Ikon Gallery Bologna: MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna
di Bologna Bregenz: Kunsthaus Bregenz Bristol: Arnolfini
Brussels: Wiels Bucharest: National Museum of Contemporary
Art Bucharest (MNAC) / Pavilion Unicredit Cairo: Contemporary Image
Collective (CIC) / Townhouse Gallery Calgary: The New Gallery
Cambridge: Wysing Arts Center Castello: Espai d´art
contemporani de Castelló (EACC) Chicago: Graham Foundation /
Logan Center, University of Chicago / The Renaissance Society
Cologne: Kölnischer Kunstverein Copenhagen: Overgaden
Derry: CCA Derry~Londonderry Dubai: Traffic Dublin:
Dublin City, The Hugh Lane / Project Arts Centre Dusseldorf:
Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen Eindhoven: Van
Abbemuseum Farsta: Konsthall C Frankfurt: Städelschule /
Portikus Gdansk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia
Genève: Centre de la photographie Ghent: S.M.A.K.
Giza: Beirut Glasgow: CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts /
Sculpture Studios Graz: Grazer Kunstverein / Kunsthaus Graz /
para_SITE Gallery Grijon: LABoral Centre for Art and Creative
Industries Hamburg: Kunstverein Helsinki: Museum of
Contemporary Art KIASMA Hobart: CAST Gallery / INFLIGHT Hong
Kong: Asia Art Archive Istanbul: BAS / CDA – Projects /
DEPO / SALT Iași: theartstudent at the University of Fine
Arts, Iași Innsbruck: Galerie im
Taxispalais Johannesburg: Center for Historical Reenactments
Kristiansand: SKMU Sørlandet Art Museum Kansas City:
La Cucaracha Press Klagenfurt: Press Kunstraum Lakeside
Leeds: Pavilion Lisbon: Maumaus, Escola de Artes Visuais /
Oporto / Kunsthalle Lissabon Loughborough: Radar, Loughborough
University Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija LLandudno: Mostyn
London: Architectural Association / Bedford Press / Gasworks / ICA /
Serpentine Gallery / The Showroom / Visiting Arts Los Angeles:
REDCAT Luxembourg: Casino Luxembourg Madrid: Brumaria / CA2M
/ Pensart Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie Marfa: Ballroom
Marfa Melbourne: Monash University Museum of Art / World Food Books
Mexico City: Proyectos Monclova Milan: Fondazione Nicola
Trussardi, Hangar Bicocca Milton Keynes: Milton Keynes Gallery
Minneapolis: Walker Arts Center Moncton:Fixed Cog Hero (a
bicycle courier company) Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture
Moscow: Garage Center for Contemporary Culture Munich: Museum
Villa Stuck / Walther Koenig Bookshop, Haus der Kunst Munich New
Delhi: Sarai CSDS New York: e-flux / Independent Curators
International (ICI) / Printed Matter, Inc Nottingham: Nottingham
Contemporary Omaha: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Oslo:
Kunstnernes hus Oxford: Modern Art Oxford Padona: Fondazione
March Paris: castillo/corrales – Section 7 Books / Centre
Pompidou / Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers Philadelphia: Bodega
Pori: Pori Art Museum Porto: Museu de Arte
Contemporânea de Serralves Portland: Portland Institute for
Contemporary Art, (PICA) / Publication Studio Prague: Dox Centre for
Contemporary Art Prishtina: Stacion – Center for Contemporary
Art Prishtina Providence: AS220 Reykjavik: Reykjavik Art
Museum Riga: Kim? Rio de Janeiro: Capacete / A Gentil Carioca
Rome: MACRO Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma / Opera Rebis
Rotterdam: Piet Zwart Institute / Witte de With
Saint-Nazaire: Le Grand Cafe, Centre D'art Contemporain
Salzburg: Salzburger Kunstverein San Antonio: Artpace
São Paulo: Kunsthalle São Paulo / Master in Visual
Arts, Faculdade Santa Marcelina Sarajevo: Sarajevo Center for
Contemporary Art Seoul: The Books / The Book Society
Sherbrooke: Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop's University
Skopje: Press to Exit Project Space Sofia: ICA Sofia / Sofia
Art Gallery St Erme Outre et Ramecourt: Performing Arts Forum St
Louis: White Flag Projects Stockholm: Bonniers Konsthall /
IASPIS / Index / Konstfack, University College of Art, Craft and Design
Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Sydney: Artspace Tallinn: Kumu Art Museum of Estonia The
Hague: Stroom Den Haag Toronto: Art Metropole / Mercer Union /
The Power Plant Torun: Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in
Torun Toowoomba: Raygun Contemporary Art Projects Trieste:
Trieste Contemporanea Umeå: Bildmuseet, Umeå
University Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst / Casco-Office for
Art, Design and Theory Vaduz: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
Valletta: Malta Contemporary Art Foundation Vancouver:
ARTSPEAK / Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British
Columbia / Fillip / Motto / READ Books, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily
Carr University of Art and Design Vienna: Salon für Kunstbuch,
Belvedere Gallery Vigo: MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo
Vilnius: Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vitoria-Gasteiz:
Montehermoso Kulturunea Visby: BAC, Baltic Art Center Warsaw:
Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki / Zachęta National Gallery of Art
Wiesbaden: Nassauischer Kunstverein (NKV) Yerevan: Armenian
Center For Contemporary Experimental Art, NPAK Zagreb: Galerija
Miroslav Kraljevic / Gallery Nova / Institute for Duration, Location and
Variables, DeLVe Zurich: Postgraduate Program in Curating,
Zürich University of the Arts / Shedhalle / White Space.
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