Introduction to Hyperstition. An Interview

Abstract

This interview deals with the concept of hyperstition that was introduced by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) team in the context of apocalypse. Hyperstition refers to effective ideas that cease to be mere fictions and become real, as opposed to superstition understood as “mere” superstition, or in other words, a passive figment of the imagination with no impact. This process of realizing a hyperstition breaks down both the truth/lie and fiction/reality dichotomies. That is why hyperstition may be regarded by some thinkers as a self-fulfilling prophecy or as the various technologies described in science fiction (for example, cyberspace). Hyperstition relates genealogically to schizoanalysis and the organs without bodies of Deleuze and Guattari. The interview reveals step-by-step various aspects of a schizoanalytic tool for converting fictions into reality, and in particular its connections with pop culture and chthonic cults. Hyperstition is described as: 1) an element of effective culture that makes itself real; 2) a fictional quality functioning as a time travel device; 3) an “intensifier of coincidence;” and as 4) a “call to the Old Ones.” By describing the basic characteristics of hyperstition, the interview reveals that hyperstition is an intergral part of the ideology of progress but that it short circuits the progressive flux of history. This short circuit which corresponds to the fourth and final component of hyperstition is triggered by a regression to the culture of the monstrous other, or Unuttera. The Unuttera conjured into being by the architects of hyperstitions - the hyperstitional cyberneticists - turns any possible future into the apocalypse.