Reza Negarestani

The ecological crisis the world is currently experiencing calls for an urgent rethinking of our relationship to nature, natural resources, and the entirety of life on Earth, as well as that of humans to each other. The time has come for repurposing coexistence, aided by post-human thought and technological advancement, and for realizing that humans are merely part of, rather than the center of, our world. 'Potential Worlds: Planetary Memories and Eco-Fictions', published in conjunction with group shows at Zurich's Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and Baku's YARAT Contemporary Art Space, questions forms of knowledge developed in the course of annexation of the environment and asks what ideas of nature might emerge from the current crisis and how we might perceive nature in the future. Thirty-six artists from around the world featured in this book examine the ecological and social consequences of the past and ongoing conquests of land for purposes of accumulating power and resources. Essays by Benjamin H. Bratton, T.J. Demos, Reza Negarestani, and Jussi Parikka shed light on multiple different perspectives, such as colonialism, post-humanism, ecology, and artistic adaption of new technologies, and investigate the potential future of mankind living in alliance with nature and the role of art in this undertaking as a technological, scientific, and social experiment. Concise texts on the work of the participating artists and an introduction by curators Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Heike Munder round out this illustrated volume. Exhibition: Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland (07.03. - 11.10.2020).

"The Medium of Contingency brings a completely new and original perspective to the relationship between the reality of the marketplace and its disassociation with the probabilistic and statistical tools used to model and support it. It utilises the author's extensive experience and research in derivatives pricing, the analysis of the theory of contingent claims and philosophy, and builds on the work of thinkers such as von Mises, Kolmogorov, Shafer and Vovk. This book argues a new way of thinking about the mathematical applications of finance: that market is "real" and relates to contingency, and yet has nothing to do with probability, when the latter is understood in its relation with statistics. Thus, a new appreciation of these relationships need to be developed to effectively apply them to the market. This book provides original insight into the relationship between financial mathematics and financial markets, and provides new perspectives on the theory of derivatives pricing in the quantitative finance industry. "--

Cyclonopedia is theoretical-fiction novel by Iranian philosopher and writer Reza Negarestani. Hailed by novelists, philosophers and cinematographers, Negarestani’s work is the first horror and science fiction book coming from and written on the Middle East. 'The Middle East is a sentient entity—it is alive!’ concludes renegade Iranian archaeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the ‘lubricant’ of historical and political narratives. A young American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along. Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil ... At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, CYCLONOPEDIA is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archaeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. CYCLONOPEDIA is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.

El aceleracionismo es una herejía política: sostiene que hay deseos, tecnologías y procesos que el capitalismo hace surgir y de los que se alimenta, pero que no puede contener; y que es necesario acelerar estos procesos para empujar al sistema más allá de sus límites. Teniendo como antecedentes teóricos al notable “Fragmento sobre las máquinas” de Marx, los volúmenes sobre capitalismo y esquizofrenia de Deleuze y Guattari, y la ficción especulativa de autores como Samuel Buttler, William Gibson y J.G. Ballard (para quien “el futuro es una mejor guía para el presente que el pasado”), los aceleracionistas se preguntan cómo liberar las fuerzas productivas cautivas bajo la ideología neoliberal, para redirigirlas hacia objetivos comunes. En este proyecto, la actual base material no necesita ser destruida, sino que es reapropiada como plataforma de lanzamiento hacia un futuro postcapitalista. Pues, ciertamente, aún no sabemos lo que un cuerpo tecno-social moderno puede hacer. Desde la publicación en 2013 del “Manifiesto por una Política Aceleracionista” de Alex Williams y Nick Srnicek estas tesis han sido adoptadas por un grupo convergente de nuevas iniciativas progresistas, al mismo tiempo que vehementemente contestadas por sus críticos. Este rico intercambio, que intentamos reflejar en la presente antología, tuvo la virtud de reactivar y actualizar un campo histórico de tensiones cuyo eje es la relación entre los efectos alienantes de la tecnología y el sistema de valor capitalista. A la desesperanza dominante en la izquierda contemporánea, que se consuela con la estridente denuncia o con la creencia autocomplaciente de que mantener una adusta crítica desde el refugio de la teoría o la “indeterminación” del arte constituye resistencia, el aceleracionismo contrapone una imagen especulativa de otros futuros posibles y un mapa cognitivo para la identificación de aquellos elementos de este sistema que pueden ser eficaces en una transición a esa otra forma de vida. ¿Es posible concebir a la inteligencia artificial, la biotécnica y el dinero virtual como algo más que medios de producción optimizados para la obtención de rendimiento económico? ¿Y en qué podría convertirse el concepto mismo de lo “humano” si algunas de estas potencialidades latentes, tales como la abolición de la necesidad de trabajar o la crisis de las categorías esencialistas de identidad, fueran liberadas al interior de un nuevo socius postcapitalista? Se trata de un debate fundamental a la hora de abrir nuevas perspectivas para las aventuras sociales y políticas por venir.

Essays, articles, artworks, and documents taken from and inspired by the symposium on Reza Negarestani?s Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, which took place in March 2011 at The New School. Hailed by novelists, philosophers, artists, cinematographers, and designers, Cyclonopedia is a key work in the emerging domains of speculative realism and theory-fiction. The text has attracted a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary audience, provoking vital debate around the relationship between philosophy, geopolitics, geophysics, and art. At once a work of speculative theology, a political samizdat, and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is a Deleuzo-Lovecraftian middle-eastern Odyssey populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, and the corpses of ancient gods. Playing out the book?s own theory of creativity ? ?a confusion in which no straight line can be traced or drawn between creator and created ? original inauthenticity? ? this multidimensional collection both faithfully interprets the text and realizes it as a loving, perforated host of fresh heresies. The volume includes an incisive contribution from the author explicating a key figure of the novel: the cyclone.