Nick Land

Land obtained a PhD in 1987 in the University of Essex under David Farrell Krell, with a thesis on Heidegger's 1953 essay {{Lang|de|Die Sprache im Gedicht}}, which is about Georg Trakl's work.Acknowledgement section of [http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.379384 Heidegger's 'Die Sprache im Gedicht' and the Cultivation of the Grapheme] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031023447/https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.379384 |date=31 October 2020 }} (PhD Thesis, University of Essex, 1987) He began as a lecturer in continental philosophy at the University of Warwick from 1987 until his resignation in 1998. In 1992, he published The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism.{{cite web |url=https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3284-on-nick-land |title=On Nick Land |last1=Wark |first1=McKenzie |date=20 June 2017 |publisher=Verso Books |access-date=14 July 2019 |archive-date=14 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714222143/https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3284-on-nick-land |url-status=live }} Land published an abundance of shorter texts, many in the 1990s during his time with the CCRU. The majority of these articles were compiled in the retrospective collection Fanged Noumena, published in 2011.

At Warwick, Land and Sadie Plant co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), an interdisciplinary research group described by philosopher Graham Harman as "a diverse group of thinkers who experimented in conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources: futurism, technoscience, philosophy, mysticism, numerology, complexity theory, and science fiction, among others".{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=coBDqJQeAQYC&q=%22a+diverse+group+of+thinkers+who+experimented+in+conceptual+production+by+welding+together+a+wide+variety+of+sources%3A+futurism%2C+technoscience%2C+philosophy%2C+mysticism%2C+numerology%2C+complexity+theory%2C+and+science+fiction%2C+among+others.%22&pg=PA6 |title=The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism |last=Harman |first=Graham |date=2011 |publisher=re.press |isbn=978-0980668346 |language=en |via=Google Books}} During his time at Warwick, Land participated in Virtual Futures, a series of cyber-culture conferences. Virtual Futures 96 was advertised as "an anti-disciplinary event" and "a conference in the post-humanities". One session involved Nick Land "lying on the ground, croaking into a mic", recalls Robin Mackay, while Mackay played jungle records in the background."{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |title=Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in |last=Beckett |first=Andy |date=2017-05-11 |work=The Guardian |access-date=2019-07-24 |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |archive-date=11 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220411030541/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |url-status=live }} He was also the thesis advisor of some PhD students.{{Cite thesis |title=Axiomatics : the apparatus of capitalism |url=http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b1402738~S15 |publisher=University of Warwick |date=May 1996 |type=Ph.D. dissertation |first=Deepak Narang |last=Sawhney}} Following his resignation, the CCRU continued meeting under his leadership. In the early 2000s, Land suffered a breakdown after a period of "fanatical" amphetamine abuse, disappearing from the public.

Land taught at the New Centre for Research & Practice until March 2017, when the Centre ended its relationship with him "following several tweets by Land this year in which he espoused intolerant opinions about Muslims and immigrants".{{cite web |title=Statement on Nick Land |website=Facebook |url=https://www.facebook.com/thenewcentre/posts/644026572465531 |access-date=14 July 2019 |date=29 March 2017 |archive-date=7 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190907225256/https://www.facebook.com/thenewcentre/posts/644026572465531 |url-status=live }}{{Better source needed|date=June 2025}}

{{as of|2017}}, Land resided in Shanghai.{{Cite news |date=2017-05-11 |title=Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |access-date=2021-11-20 |work=The Guardian |language=en |archive-date=11 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170511050642/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |url-status=live }}

{{Transhumanism}}

Land's work has been influential to the political philosophy of accelerationism. Land views capitalism the driver of modernity and deterritorialization, advocating its use to dissolve existing social systems and reach a technological singularity.{{Cite journal |last=Le |first=Vincent |date=March 23, 2018 |title="These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends": Decrypting Westworld as Dual Coding and Corruption of Nick Land's Accelerationism. |url= |journal=Colloquy: Text Theory Critique. |issue=34 |pages=3–23 |via=EBSCO}}{{cite news |author=Beauchamp |first=Zack |date=18 November 2019 |title=Accelerationism: the obscure idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the world |url=https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250210123938/https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch |archive-date=Feb 10, 2025 |access-date=June 1, 2025 |work=Vox |publisher=Vox Media}}{{cite web |last=Jiménez de Cisneros |first=Roc |date=5 November 2014 |title=The Accelerationist Vertigo (II): Interview with Robin Mackay |url=https://lab.cccb.org/en/the-accelerationist-vertigo-ii-interview-with-robin-mackay/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190818150741/https://lab.cccb.org/en/the-accelerationist-vertigo-ii-interview-with-robin-mackay/ |archive-date=August 18, 2019 |access-date=June 1, 2025 |publisher=Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona}} Along with the other members of CCRU, Land wove together ideas from the occult, cybernetics, science fiction, and poststructuralist philosophy to try to describe the phenomena of technocapitalist acceleration.

Land coined the term "hyperstition", a portmanteau of "superstition" and "hyper", to describe something which "is equipoised between fiction and technology". According to Land, hyperstitions are ideas that, by their very existence as ideas, bring about their own reality.{{cite web |last1=Carstens |first1=Delphi |last2=Land |first2=Nick |date=2009 |title=Hyperstition: An Introduction: Delphi Carstens interviews Nick Land |url=https://www.orphandriftarchive.com/articles/hyperstition-an-introduction/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20201208185054/https://www.orphandriftarchive.com/articles/hyperstition-an-introduction/ |archive-date=8 December 2020 |access-date=2021-04-19 |website=Orphan Drift Archive |language=en-US}}

Land has contributed to the Dark Enlightenment (also known as the neo-reactionary movement and abbreviated NRx), which opposes egalitarianism and democracy. According to reporter Dylan Matthews, Land believes democracy restricts accountability and freedom.{{cite web |last=Matthews |first=Dylan |author-link=Dylan Matthews |date=25 August 2016 |title=Alt-right explained |url=https://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11434098/alt-right-explained |work=Vox |access-date=13 June 2017 |archive-date=31 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170831155255/https://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11434098/alt-right-explained |url-status=live }} His Dark Enlightenment work also contributes to his accelerationism; he views democratic and egalitarian policies as only slowing down acceleration and the technocapital singularity. Thus, he prefers capitalist monarchies to pursue long-term technological progress, while he considers democracy to only focus on short-term public interests.{{Cite journal |last=Le |first=Vincent |date=2018 |title=THE DECLINE OF POLITICS IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE? CONSTELLATIONS AND COLLISIONS BETWEEN NICK LAND AND RAY BRASSIER. |journal=Cosmos & History |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=31-50 |via=EBSCO Information Services}} Shuja Haider notes, "His sequence of essays setting out its principles have become the foundation of the NRx canon."{{cite web |last=Haider |first=Shuja |date=28 March 2017 |url=https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/03/28/the-darkness-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-artificial-intelligence-and-neoreaction/ |title=The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel: Artificial Intelligence and Neoreaction |work=Viewpoint Magazine |access-date=13 October 2017 |archive-date=13 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013172504/https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/03/28/the-darkness-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-artificial-intelligence-and-neoreaction/ |url-status=live }}

His writing has also discussed themes of scientific racism and eugenics, or what he has called "hyper-racism".{{cite web|author=Burrows, Roger|date=10 June 2020|title=On Neoreaction|url=https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/on-neoreaction/|publisher=The Sociological Review|access-date=11 June 2020|archive-date=21 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221004210/https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/on-neoreaction/|url-status=live}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.boundary2.org/2019/10/robert-topinka-back-to-a-past-that-was-futuristic-the-alt-right-and-the-uncanny-form-of-racism/ |title="Back to a Past that Was Futuristic": The Alt-Right and the Uncanny Form of Racism |last=Topinka |first=Robert |date=2019-10-14 |website=b2o |language=en-US |access-date=2019-10-28 |quote=Land proposes an acceleration of the "explicitly superior" and already "genetically self-filtering elite" through a system of "assortative mating" that would offer a "class-structured mechanism for population diremption, on a vector toward neo-speciation". |archive-date=28 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028121430/http://www.boundary2.org/2019/10/robert-topinka-back-to-a-past-that-was-futuristic-the-alt-right-and-the-uncanny-form-of-racism/ |url-status=live }}{{Cite book |title=Towards a Philosophy of the City: Interdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives |last=Burrows |first=Roger |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2018 |editor1-last=Jacobs |editor1-first=Keith |location=London |chapter=Urban Futures and The Dark Enlightenment: A Brief Guide for the Perplexed |editor2-last=Malpas |editor2-first=Jeff}}{{Cite web |url=http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2014/10/hyper-racism.html |title=HYPER-RACISM |last=Land |first=Nick |date=4 October 2014 |language=en-GB |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141007023855/http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2014/10/hyper-racism.html |archive-date=7 October 2014}} Since late 2016, he has increasingly been recognised as an inspiration for the alt-right.{{Cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/138983/teenage-nazi-wannabe |title=I Was a Teenage Nazi Wannabe |last=Bacharach |first=Jacob |date=23 November 2016 |magazine=The New Republic |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=16 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191216234035/https://newrepublic.com/article/138983/teenage-nazi-wannabe |url-status=live }}

• {{Cite web |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-is-the-alt-right_uk_58371275e4b0b60ceeaa01ae |title=What Is The Alt-Right Movement And Who Is In It? The Frightening Rise And Rise Of The White Nationalists |last=York |first=Chris |date=25 November 2016 |website=HuffPost UK |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=24 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180124055616/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-is-the-alt-right_uk_58371275e4b0b60ceeaa01ae |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/ |title=Behind the Internet's Anti-Democracy Movement |last=Gray |first=Rosie |author-link=Rosie Gray |date=10 February 2017 |website=The Atlantic |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=30 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190630170019/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/ |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/nick-land-the-alt-writer |title=Nick Land: the Alt-writer |last=Blincoe |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Blincoe |date=18 May 2017 |website=Prospect Magazine |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=29 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929043759/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/nick-land-the-alt-writer |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://qz.com/1007144/the-neo-fascist-philosophy-that-underpins-both-the-alt-right-and-silicon-valley-technophiles/ |title=The neo-fascist philosophy that underpins both the alt-right and Silicon Valley technophiles |last=Goldhill |first=Olivia |date=18 June 2017 |quote=. He advocates for racial separation under the belief that "elites" will enhance their IQs by associating only with each other. |website=Quartz |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=18 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170618123305/https://qz.com/1007144/the-neo-fascist-philosophy-that-underpins-both-the-alt-right-and-silicon-valley-technophiles/ |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://thepointmag.com/politics/final-fantasy-neoreactionary-politics-liberal-imagination/ |title=Final Fantasy: Neoreactionary politics and the liberal imagination |last=Duesterberg |first=James |date=2 July 2017 |website=The Point |access-date=6 January 2020 |archive-date=12 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191012033952/https://thepointmag.com/politics/final-fantasy-neoreactionary-politics-liberal-imagination/ |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://www.boundary2.org/2019/10/robert-topinka-back-to-a-past-that-was-futuristic-the-alt-right-and-the-uncanny-form-of-racism/ |title=Back to a Past that Was Futuristic: The Alt-Right and the Uncanny Form of Racism |last=Topinka |first=Robert |date=14 October 2019 |website=b2o |access-date=6 January 2020 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423052820/http://www.boundary2.org/2019/10/robert-topinka-back-to-a-past-that-was-futuristic-the-alt-right-and-the-uncanny-form-of-racism/ |url-status=live }}
• {{Cite web |url=https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch |title=Accelerationism: the obscure idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the world/ |last=Beauchamp |first=Zack |date=18 November 2019 |website=Vox |access-date=4 January 2020 |archive-date=18 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210218170834/https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch |url-status=live }} Land disputes that NRx is a movement, and defines the alt-right as distinct from the NRx.{{Cite web |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/ |title=The Anti-Democracy Movement Influencing the Right |last=Gray |first=Rosie |author-link=Rosie Gray |date=2017-02-10 |website=The Atlantic |language=en-US |access-date=2019-08-16 |archive-date=30 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190630170019/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/ |url-status=bot: unknown}}

Mark Fisher, a British cultural theorist and student of Land's, argued in 2011 that Land's greatest impact so far had been on music and art rather than on philosophy. The musician Kode9, the artist Jake Chapman, and others studied with or describe their influence by Land, often highlighting Land's inhuman, "technilist", or "delirious" qualities. Fisher underscores in particular how Land's personality during the 1990s could catalyze changes in those engaging with his work through what Kodwo Eshun describes as a manner "immediately open, egalitarian, and absolutely unaffected by academic protocol" which could dramatise "theory as a geopolitico-historical epic". Fisher has also written that "Land was our Nietzsche" in baiting progressive tendencies, mixing the reactionary and futuristic, and his writing style. He also praised Land's attacks on left-wing academia while taking issue with his interpretation of Deleuze and Guattari's views on capitalism.{{cite book |last=Fisher |first=Mark |title=#Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader |date=2014 |publisher=Urbanomic |isbn=978-0957529557 |editor-last1=Mackay |editor-first1=Robin |pages=335–46: 340, 342 |chapter=Terminator vs Avatar |editor-last2=Avanessian |editor-first2=Armen}}

Nihilist philosopher Ray Brassier, also formerly from the University of Warwick, stated in 2017 that "Nick Land has gone from arguing 'Politics is dead', 20 years ago, to this completely old-fashioned, standard reactionary stuff."{{cite web |last=Beckett |first=Andy |date=11 May 2017 |title=Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220411030541/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in |archive-date=11 April 2022 |website=The Guardian}}

• [http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.379384 Heidegger's 'Die Sprache im Gedicht' and the Cultivation of the Grapheme] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031023447/https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.379384 |date=31 October 2020 }} (PhD Thesis, University of Essex, 1987).
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=ts7ixS9roP0C The Thirst For Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (An Essay in Atheistic Religion)] (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=GBTvkQEACAAJ Machinic Postmodernism: Complexity, Technics and Regulation] (with Keith Ansell-Pearson & Joseph A. McCahery) (SAGE Publications, 1996).{{Failed verification|date=December 2023}}
• The Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010 (China Intercontinental Press, 2010).
• Shanghai Basics (China Intercontinental Press, 2010).
• {{Cite book |last=Land |first=Nick |title=Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007 |publisher=Urbanomic |year=2011 |isbn=978-0955308789 |editor-last=Mackay |editor-first=Robin |location=London |editor-last2=Brassier |editor-first2=Ray}}
• Calendric Dominion (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2013).
• Suspended Animation (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2013).
• [https://www.urbanomic.com/book/fission/ Fission] (Urbanomic, 2014).
• Templexity: Disordered Loops through Shanghai Time (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2014).
• Phyl-Undhu: Abstract Horror, Exterminator (Time Spiral Press, 2014).
• Shanghai Times (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2014) {{ASIN|B00IGKZPBA}}.
• Dragon Tales: Glimpses of Chinese Culture (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2014) {{ASIN|B00JNDHBGQ}}.
• Xinjiang Horizons (Urbanatomy Electronic, 2014) {{ASIN|B00JNDHDVY}}.
• Chasm (Time Spiral Press, 2015) {{ASIN|B019HBZ2Q4}}.
• The Dark Enlightenment (Imperium Press, 2022) ISBN 978-1922602688.
• Xenosystems (Passage Publishing, 2024) {{ASIN|B0D8MNTVHY}}
• Urban Future (Noumena Institute, 2025) ISBN 978-1922602688.
• Outsideness: 2013–2023 (Noumena Institute, 2025) ISBN 978-0646712703.

{{Reflist}}

{{wikiquote}}

• {{substack pub|zerophilosophy|Outsideness}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20200810122512/https://xenosystems.net/ Outside In] (Land's Dark Enlightenment blog, archived from [https://www.xenosystems.net the original] on 2020-08-10)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20200810120043/https://www.uf-blog.net/ Urban Future (2.1)] (Land's accelerationism blog, archived from [https://www.uf-blog.net the original] on 2020-08-10)
• {{twitter|xenocosmography}}

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