The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) was an experimental cultural theorist collective based out of Warwick University, England, from 1995 to 1997, and later as a student run collective after 2003.  Warwick University maintains that the CCRU was never a sanctioned academic project, with some faculty going so far as to assert that the CCRU "has never existed". The published works of the CCRU are strongly associated with, and influenced by, feminist and cultural theorist Sadie Plant, and philosopher Nick Land. History 1994-1996 Sadie Plant formed the collective around 1993-1994 , and following Plant's departure Nick Land became the driving force in determining its methods and ideas. His influence is prominent in the published works CCRU Writings 1997-2003. Other major contributors included writer and journalist Stephen Metcalf, as well as other colleagues who's research were inspired by emerging cyberfeminist, and libidinal-materialist Deleuzian thinking . In addition to drawing inspiration from Deleuze's works Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, to which references can be found interlaced with the CCRU's writings, the collective drew inspiration from other writers including H. P. Lovecraft, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard, and Carl Jung. These connections made leading up to the formation , and during the CCRU's tenure eventually lead to the Virtual Futures conferences. The conference, organised in 1994–96, was founded by Joan Broadhurst, Dan O’Hara, Otto Imken, Eric Cassidy, and postgraduate students under the aegis of the Warwick Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature.Eric Cassidy, one of the organisers The Virtual FuturesVirtual Futures Twitter account, 11 November 2017, names these four organisers and states that the idea Ccru was involved is 'revisionist history'. This was retweeted by Joan BroadhurstSimon Reynolds, "Renegade Academia", unpublished feature for Lingua Franca, 1999. Accessed 27 December 2014. Stephen Metcalf was a central player in CCRU's creation. His essay "Autogeddon" is included in the 1998 Virtual Futures book published by Routledge, and in 1996, Metcalf translated, edited and published a collection of texts by Friedrich Nietzsche . Among the texts were Hammer of the Gods: Apocalyptic Texts for the Criminally Insane, that reflected and influenced how Nietzsche was being read by those who formed the CCRU at the time. 1997-2003 Plant left her academic post and affiliation with the CCRU in 1997, leading the collective to come under the influence and direction of Land.  Under his leadership, the collective became increasingly experimental and unorthodox in its work, with its output including writing, performance events, music and collaborative art, and exploring post-structuralism, cybernetics, science fiction, rave culture, and occult studies. The CCRU's written output was largely self-published in zines such as Collapse and Abstract Culture, and many of these writings are maintained online on the website for  CCRU. Land's antisocial behavior, reliance on amphetamines, and increasingly experimental writing at this time led academics and contemporaries to distance themselves from him . He eventually left his academic post following accusations that he was dealing drugs to students. As a consequence, the CCRU could no longer use space at, or claim affiliation with Warwick University. CCRU continued to operate from a flat in Leamington Spa up until its disestablishment in 2003. Members and affiliates Following the departure of Plant where the University of Warwick began to deny any relationship to the group, some of the CCRU's members have had an ongoing subcultural impact.Fisher, Mark "Nick Land: Mind Games." Dazed and ConfusedSimon Reynolds, 'Renegade Aacdemia', unpublished feature for Lingua Franca, 1999. Accessed 27 December 2014. Legacy and controversy According to Mackay, by around 1998, "The CCRU became quasi-cultish, quasi-religious". Mackay mentions having "left before it descended into sheer madness", with Grant asserting that the later excesses drove several members into mental breakdown. Urbanomic and Time Spiral Press published a collection of texts by the CCRU entitled CCRU: Writings 1997-2003 in 2015, which garnered high reception and renewed interest in the collective's writings, mythology and overall approach to speculative fiction and philosophy. None of the work is attributed, but largely appears to be written by Land or under his strong influence, and although it states in the collection that it is a complete collection, this does not appear to be accurate. The role played by Land, Plant, and the CCRU in the development of the fringe philosophy accelerationism, a term originating from Land's 1995 essay "Meltdown", is profound, and contemporary debates around accelerationism have concerned the viability and utility of Land's ideas with the CCRU.Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian, 'Introduction' to #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2014) pp.1-46
The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) was an experimental cultural theorist collective based out of Warwick University, England, from 1995 to 1997, and later as a student run collective after 2003. It garnered reputation for its idiosyncratic and surreal "theory-fiction" which incorporated cyberpunk and Gothic horror, and their work has since had an online cult following related to the rise in popularity of accelerationism. Warwick University maintains that the CCRU was never a sanctioned academic project, with some faculty going so far as to assert that the CCRU "has never existed". The published works of the CCRU are strongly associated with, and influenced by, feminist and cultural theorist Sadie Plant, and philosopher Nick Land. History 1994-1996 Sadie Plant formed the collective around 1993-1994 as a cyberfeminist research group. Eventually, Nick Land became the driving force in determining its methods and ideas. Other major contributors included Kodwo Eshun and Stephen Metcalf, as well as other colleagues whose research were inspired by emerging nihilist, psychoanalytic and materialist theory . In addition to drawing inspiration from French critical theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, to which references can be found in the CCRU's writings, the collective drew inspiration from other writers including H. P. Lovecraft, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard, and Carl Jung. The connections made leading up to the formation of the CCRU and during the its tenure eventually lead to the Virtual Futures conferences. The conferences, organised from 1994–96, were initially founded by Joan Broadhurst, Dan O’Hara, Otto Imken, Eric Cassidy, and postgraduate students under the aegis of the Warwick Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature.Eric Cassidy, one of the organisers The Virtual FuturesVirtual Futures Twitter account, 11 November 2017, names these four organisers and states that the idea Ccru was involved is 'revisionist history'. This was retweeted by Joan BroadhurstSimon Reynolds, "Renegade Academia", unpublished feature for Lingua Franca, 1999. Accessed 27 December 2014. Stephen Metcalf was a central player in CCRU's creation. His essay "Autogeddon" is included in the 1998 Virtual Futures book published by Routledge, and in 1996, Metcalf translated, edited and published a collection of texts by Friedrich Nietzsche , Hammer of the Gods: Apocalyptic Texts for the Criminally Insane, that reflected and influenced how Nietzsche was being read by those who formed the CCRU at the time. 1997-2003 Plant left her academic post and affiliation with the CCRU in 1997, leading the collective to come under the influence and direction of Land. According to Robin Mackay, by around 1998, "the CCRU became quasi-cultish, quasi-religious". Mackay mentions having "left before it descended into sheer madness", with Iain Hamilton Grant asserting that the later excesses drove several members into mental breakdown. Under his leadership, the collective became increasingly experimental and unorthodox in its work, with its output including writing, performance events, music and collaborative art, and exploring post-structuralism, cybernetics, science fiction, rave culture, and occult studies. The CCRU's written output was largely self-published in zines such as Collapse and Abstract Culture, and many of these writings are maintained online on the website for the CCRU. Land's antisocial behavior, reliance on amphetamines, and increasingly experimental writing at this time led academics and contemporaries to distance themselves from him , and he eventually left his academic post following accusations that he was dealing drugs to students. As a consequence, the CCRU could no longer use space at, or claim affiliation with Warwick University. CCRU continued to operate from a flat in Leamington Spa up until its disestablishment in 2003. Members and affiliates Following the departure of Plant whereupon the University of Warwick began to deny any relationship to the group, some of the CCRU's members have had an ongoing subcultural impact.Fisher, Mark "Nick Land: Mind Games." Dazed and ConfusedSimon Reynolds, 'Renegade Aacdemia', unpublished feature for Lingua Franca, 1999. Accessed 27 December 2014. Legacy and controversy Urbanomic and Time Spiral Press published a collection of texts by the CCRU entitled CCRU: Writings 1997-2003 in 2015, which garnered high reception and renewed interest in the collective's writings, mythology and overall approach to speculative fiction and philosophy. None of the work is attributed, but largely appears to be written by Land or under his strong influence, and although it states in the collection that it is a complete collection, this does not appear to be accurate. The role played by Land, Plant, and the CCRU in the development of the fringe philosophy accelerationism, a term originating from Land's 1995 essay "Meltdown", is profound, and contemporary debates around accelerationism have concerned the viability and utility of Land's ideas with the CCRU.Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian, 'Introduction' to #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader, (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2014) pp.1-46
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