Speed freaks: acceleration & accelerationism from the mid-century to now

Gallen, Niall ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-9474 (2024). Speed freaks: acceleration & accelerationism from the mid-century to now. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

Preview

Gallen2024PhD.pdf Text - Accepted Version Available under License All rights reserved. Download (3MB) | Preview

Abstract

Throughout this thesis I examine accelerationism in select works from the mid-century through to the contemporary moment. I characterise accelerationism as a litany of affirmative responses to experiences of “acceleration”, the idea that forms of technological and social change, as well as the pace of life, are increasing. Contemporary studies of acceleration tend to focus on its negative aspects by expressing critical concern for its deleterious consequences on individuals and institutions. Accelerationists take a different view. Existing on the inverse, mirror-side, of ambivalence, accelerationists either accept or embrace the consequences of acceleration. In doing so, they perform a political gesture, one which both observes and hopes to overcome a stasis that they associate with a given political status quo.

As political gestures go, it is my view that accelerationism is an uneasy one. The idea is obtuse, often favouring complicity with the harms of frenetic change over other forms of political resistance. This often makes the perspectives of its adherents questionable and, at times, even outright reactionary. Yet, accelerationism is a position that has persisted and that continues to manifest alongside acceleration at varying levels of intensity. It is my contention in this thesis that it was palpable in the works of advocates for mass and consumer culture in the fifties, in visual arts that championed change in the sixties, and in the digital “revolutionaries” of the nineties. It also remains detectable today in proponents of spaceflight and automation. This continued insistence of accelerationism throughout the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first make probing it a necessity. Working at the intersection between art and literature, throughout this thesis I analyse examples of accelerationist responses to experiences of acceleration in order to both clarify what accelerationism is, and critique it. In doing so, I produce the first sustained study that analyses and synthesizes the accelerationist currents of the Independent Group, Eduardo Paolozzi, and J.G. Ballard, while furthering studies of contemporary accelerationism and the outputs of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. This research will be of interest to audiences hoping to gain greater insight into the conflicted political terrain that is accelerationism, and for those more generally interested in cultural responses to acceleration.

Type of Work:	Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)
Award Type:	Doctorates > Ph.D.
Supervisor(s):	Supervisor(s) Email ORCID Butchard, Dorothy UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Ferguson, Rex UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Hornsey, Richard UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Gasiorek, Andrzej UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Licence:	All rights reserved
College/Faculty:	Colleges > College of Arts & Law
School or Department:	School of English, Drama and Creative Studies, Department of English Literature
Funders:	Arts and Humanities Research Council
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain M Music and Books on Music > ML Literature of music N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR P Language and Literature > PR English literature
URI:	http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/15048

Actions

	Request a Correction
	View Item

Downloads