A full history of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) is yet to be written.1 Less a formal research group than a short-lived student-run collective, CCRU was founded in the University of Warwick’s (UK) philosophy department in 1995 around the work of Sadie Plant and Nick Land. Although officially existing for just over two years, CCRU’s unusual studies combining the thought of Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari with cybernetics, science fiction, rave culture, and occult studies have influenced trends like speculative realism and “accelerationism.” Among the CCRU circle was cultural theorist Mark Fisher (1968–2017). Fisher’s collected writings are now published in a vast 814-page volume.
The name K-Punk alone reflects Fisher’s interest in cyberpunk literature and post-punk music, both part of CCRU’s investigations.2 As he explains in an early post, “Why K?,” CCRU writers used “K” as “a libidinally preferable substitution” for the capture of the term “cyber”...
University of California Press