The conference is second in a series of conferences on new humanities which started with last year's Cultural Studies and Speculative Realism with keynote Levi Bryant.

 

Together with this year's guest speakers: Nick Srnicek and Mark Fisher we aim to explore the possibilities of radical future. The accelerationist thought increasingly appears to be a major intersection of current discussions regarding a redefinition of agency and utopia. By introducing the notion of 'ACCELERATION' we seek to investigate aesthetical, epistemic and political ways of reorienting and renavigating the future.

What does it mean - 'to accelerate the process'? Why is it so necessary to regain the future?

Accelerationism not only seeks to answer these questions, but also to find the way out of fetishization of reactive localism, direct action and horizontalism. In return it calls us to embrace new modes of society and (in)humanity, the complexity of 'the global' and the potential of technologically expanded cognitive capacities.

The term 'accelerationism' was initially critically formulated by Benjamin Noys in The Persistence of the Negative and later Malign Velocities. Noys described it as a shared belief in necessity of thinking in terms of speed, virtuality, abstraction and technological expansion. Origins of accelerationism could be then traced back to the Italian Futurism, Nick Land's cyberpunk phuturism, science-fiction literature, writings of Nicolai Fedorov and most importantly – Karl Marx. In this context Noys situated the reflection of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (The Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia), Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard.

New ways of reading accelerationism have been recently developed. Political (Srnicek and Williams) and epistemic (Ray Brassier, Reza Negarestani) perspectives on understanding acceleration incorporate reflection on newest technologies and correspond with the premises of Speculative Realism. They call for a use of Big Data and encourage us to face the challenges of transhumanism.

We are interested in exploring the possibilities of acceleration  – both political and technological, cultural and aesthetical, social and philosophical. What links them together is an affirmative approach to technology and readiness to think of modern vision of humanity and social governmentality.

We especially invite participants interested in notions of acceleration, New Prometheaism, Posthumanism, New Enlightenment, Speculative Realism and New Aesthetic.

Topics of presentations may include, while are not being limited to:
 

• Genealogies of accelerationist thought (K. Marx, G. Deleuze & F. Guattari, J-F. Lyotard)

• Accelerationism in the context of Italian operaismo of Alberto Toscano and Antonio Negri

• Cyberculture and its relations with accelerationism

• Cinema (e.g. science-fiction, artificial cinema, post-cinematic affect)

• Acceleration in literature (J.G. Ballard, cyberpunk, science-fiction)

• Utopia and accelerationism

• Art and New Aesthetic

• Music and music culutures

• Possibilities of acceleration in architecture and urban planning

• Speculative Realism vs accelerationist propositions

• Technology and its potentiality in accelerationist thought

• Critiques of accelerationism

 

 

We also welcome pre-constituted panels and workshops related to the topics of the conference.

We plan to hold a seminar with guest speakers.


 

Practical information:

Abstracts for individual papers (300-400 words)
should include:

1. Title
2. Presenter's full name + short bio
3. Institutional affiliation
4. Abstract
5. Key words
6. Technical requirements

Conference will be held in English.

Pre-organized panels for consideration should additionally include a summary paragraph along with proposed session title.

Proposals to organize workshops should contain:

1. Workshop proposal (500-words)
2. Summarized résumé

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS:
May 5, 2016.
PROGRAM WILL BE PUBLISHED BY:
May 12, 2016.

CONFERENCE FEE: 120 PLN/25 EUROS
(does not cover travel or accommodation)

SEND YOUR SUBMISSIONS
OR ANY QUESTIONS to: conferenceradicalfuture@gmail.com