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July 24, 2015
Coincidence Engineering: A
review of CCRU: Writings 19972003
Chris Shambaugh
/ Topics CCRU Hyperstition Reviews
As the consequence of a full century’s research into dynamic models,
the significance of prime numbers, Lemurian ethnography, and
hyperbolic horror, the recent publication of compiled writings from the
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit was certainly unexpected. Those
acquainted with the materials assembled here might notice that the
peculiarly Gregorian sequence ‘1997-2003’ does not exactly align with
more nonlinear accounts of the unit’s activity delivered elsewhere.
Furthermore, since the Ccru conceived time as something that (unlike
an arrow) always feeds back into itself, the chronological positioning of
this work by Time Spiral Press shouldn’t necessarily indicate any
ordinary interval, but might be better rendered as the opening of a
channel – inviting readers to engage these writings as the timetraveling devices that they are.
Despite repeated attempts to quarantine the escapades of this group
– whether through clusters of proper names that may or may not exist,
or analogous systems that only ever offer occasional traction – the
texts enclosed within this volume continue to modify the thoughts of
many. Soundtracked by the rhythmic intensity of ‘90s jungle and
Detroit techno, while transfixed by the autocatalytic return of the Old
Ones, the runaway processes of positive feedback (not to mention the
seminars of one Professor Challenger), by all accounts the Ccru
became irrevocably entangled in an as yet unresolved mesh of fact and
fiction. Cognizant that every frame of reference is being eroded by a
solipsism, the gestures within Ccru: Writings 1997-2003 slip towards
anonymity, not simply blurring the boundaries between philosophy and
literature, but injecting forceful spirals of both into existence.
It seems likely that at a certain point the unit was itself abducted by
the very self-assembling eddies of truth and falsity that it had once
merely investigated. The un-piloted documents resulting from this
apprehension, that comprise this collection, are as tormented by
ancient hoaxes as they are indicative of current information phase
changes. It is a book detailing a conflict as old as sapience, in which
actuality is always undergoing reconstruction by either number or
knowledge – where any synthesis of the two inevitably ends up taking
a side.
The darker power in this cosmos arises from a primeval sigil that has
come to be known as the Numogram, whose arithmetic exactness and
chthonic resonances are apparently only appreciated by those who
draw its contours themselves. It is suggested that many neolumerian
initiates regard this object as the only map of time worthy of
consideration, yet still others insist that its best use is as a platform
for practicing an ethics of unbelief. Under the understandable
assumption that belief and disbelief are but two sides of the same
futile coin toss, whilst seeking only unbelief’s ceaseless purchase on
contingency (for it does not indulge in [or restrain from] inference of
any kind), these numogrammatic architects magnetize nodes from the
future, so as to collude with the cascading instantiations of the
present, which are always bootstrapping themselves from the past.
The other predominant history unfolding throughout these pages is
encoded and maintained by a top secret society so enveloping, the
majority of its members are oblivious to their very involvement.
According to the Ccru, the role that this clock-and-dagger affiliation
(denoted here as the Architectonic Order of the Eschaton) has held in
curating the history of western thought should not go unnoticed,
despite their ostensibly magical intentions. Evidently this primordial
faction (AOE) is also at fault for developing a self-simulating reality
control machine (called Axiomatic Systems (incorporated)) – which is
basically a regenerative cataloguing program that happens to look a lot
like the universe for some, and still like God for others. Although AxSys
clearly holds particular contiguities with both Capitalism and the
Internet, it is worth noting that this thing operates specifically under
the camouflage of read only memory (ROM).
Perhaps needless to say, all of this is thoroughly complicated by the
notion of hyperstition, which is not only said to have used the Ccru as
much as they used it, but is increasingly considered to be the engine
of all terrestrial activity by many traversed in the disciplines. The
findings of one cryptographer in the group’s canon depicts the history
of all of life on Earth – organic and inorganic – as one of
geophilosophical trauma, whose core is as repressed as any human
tragedy on its surface. Concerning the relevance of this claim for
hyperstitional propagation, an anonymous Crypt dweller allowed me to
share the following warning: “Taking hyperstition literally entails
recognizing it as ultimately uncontrollable by metaphor, which is
incidentally also self-replicating. For this reason it can be very
disturbing to talk about the contamination of reality with infectious
technologies,” she wrote. “Especially without the numbers and their
markets in front of you!” Whether any of this is worthy of philosophical
consideration is hard to say, as the majority of the concepts
engineered and trafficked throughout the Ccru archive have been
written and rewritten by decoys, if not by double agents.
Bewildering through and through, this book deprograms
preconceptions in unfathomable ways, and is thus indispensible for
anyone curious about the parameters of conceptualization, as well as