Accelerationism as a Philosophy of Energy

Instructor: Lucas Surjus Date & Time: April 10 & 17 09:00AM - 12:00PM ET

DESCRIPTION: This Roundtable maps the extent to which accelerationism can be understood as a philosophy of energy, fostering discussion around what a supposed “point of view of energy” implies for human beings and our collective desire for energy transition—and how these implications have been theorized elsewhere within accelerationist thought. In this sense, the Roundtable addresses not only the climate crisis but also questions of contemporary ontology, centering on the paradigmatic passage between Nick Land and Reza Negarestani. In Cyclonopedia, Negarestani annihilates any residual metaphorical distance by turning the novel’s protagonist into the energy source itself, detonating Land’s libidinal-materialist diagnostic machine and marking the point of no return for speculative realism. To treat accelerationism as a philosophy of energy is to approach the climate crisis from the impossible standpoint of energy itself—from exuberant sunlight to decayed oil—and to ask what aesthetic and theoretical consequences such a perspective entails. Both Land and Negarestani displace authorship into fictional or nonhuman figures—from Land’s machinic and libidinal personae to Negarestani’s fictitious Professor Parsani—raising questions about what such aesthetic strategies mean and what they do. As capitalism increasingly becomes a system for expending vast quantities of energy to achieve barely more than nothing—transforming heat, water, and resources into alphanumerical sequences—it becomes necessary to ask: what does energy think it is doing, and to what extent does such a question make sense at all?

ROUNDTABLE BREAKDOWN: 1. Critique of Speculative Realisms: Beginning with Quentin Meillassoux, we examine speculative realism’s core claims, distinguishing its critical mode from its critique of Kantian correlationism. /// 2. The Libidinal Materialism Diagnostic Machine: We reconstruct the accelerationist apparatus developed by Land to understand how “hyper-correlationism” operates as an energetic and metaphysical framework. /// 3. Climate Crisis and Correlationism: We turn to the state of the art in the scientific and economic debates surrounding the climate crisis, tracing how their conceptual architectures remain embedded in Kantian correlationism. /// 4. Ecological Philosophies and Capitalism: Finally, we engage “more explicitly ecological” ontologies, such as Amerindian perspectivism, to consider what they reveal about capitalism and the planetary crisis when positioned alongside accelerationism and correlationist critique.

SESSION ONE:The first session introduces participants to the overlapping terrains of contemporary ontology and the climate crisis by exploring the extent to which science itself faces a metaphysical crisis rooted in the effects of Kantian correlationism, as articulated by Meillassoux. Here, we traverse this terrain using what accelerationism calls the libidinal materialism diagnostic machine—a model as expansive as the territory it seeks to map. Through the works of Land and Negarestani, we reconstruct the contours of a philosophy of energy implicitly shared between them, one threaded through the energetic continuum linking Nietzsche and Freud. By the end of Session One, participants will be able to engage fully with the Roundtable’s theoretical stakes, situating accelerationism as an attempt to think energy and transition from the standpoint of energy itself.

SESSION TWO: The second and final session begins outside accelerationism, examining how contemporary economics, science, and philosophy conceptualize the interrelations between energy, capitalism, and the climate crisis. This session invites participants to connect these frameworks with the accelerationist critique of correlationism, asking how thought itself becomes bound to metaphor when it encounters energy—and what this has to do with the fictitious and performative strategies of Land and Negarestani. Ultimately, “Accelerationism as a Philosophy of Energy” becomes less a conclusion than a platform for shared inquiry. This session is designed as a space to identify theoretical and aesthetic overlaps among participants, nurturing collective research agendas and potential future collaborations rooted in libidinal perspectives and their possible transcendence.

READING LIST: Ray Brassier, “The Truth of Extinction,” in Nihil Unbound, Quentin Meillassoux, “Ancestrality,” in After Finitude, Nick Land, “The Curse of the Sun” and “The Passion of the Cyclone,” in Fanged Noumena, Reza Negarestani, “Tellurian Insurgencies: Xerodrome, Solar Tempests, and Earth–Sun Axes,” in Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, Mark Fisher, “Spinoza, K-Punk, Neuropunk”, Nick Land, “Barker Speaks,” in CCRU Writings / Fanged Noumena, Reza Negarestani, “Uncharted Regions: Catalytic Spaces,” in Cyclonopedia

IMAGE: Three Gorges Dam, Hubei Province, China, completed in 2012.

Lucas Surjus is a Brazilian philosopher and writer. His master’s thesis, “Prolegomena to a philosophy of energy: from Nietzsche to Negarestani” presents an energeticist reading of accelerationism that seeks to demonopolize the spaces dedicated to discussions that revolve around climate crisis and the energy transition, arguing that its libidinal perspective is a crucial key to diagramming and navigating contemporary planetary matters in both its ecological and ontological dimensions. Surjus has cofounded the Núcleo de Estudos em Filosofia da Energia (Centre for Studies in Philosophy of Energy), based in Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil, and is a Researcher at The New Centre for Research & Practice.