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✱ Becoming Press is an Independent Publisher 1 of Theoretical Literature2 ex nihilo.3 ✱  


 



Introduction

This opening statement—“Becoming Press is an independent publisher of theoretical literature that dwells in negativity”—certainly has the potential to mean something, and those who have been following Becoming since the beginning stand a chance of understanding what this might mean to us. Yet, as our catalogue of publications continues to grow and as our audience grows with it, we are increasingly aware that the majority of the people we are speaking to, when writing, publishing and posting, do not know who we are, where we come from, or what motivates our activity. It has become a matter of increasing urgency to find new ways to communicate what Becoming Press is, what it has been and what it wants to be — it is in this spirit that this short manifesto has been written. 

In an attempt to keep these opening notes short enough to read and digest online, we have structured them to coincide with our opening statement, breaking it down into its fundamental signifiers: independent publishing, minor theoretical literature, and negativity. Each of these topics is a black hole that dilates into infinity, and as such, the process of producing this text prompted the development of a long-form historical and editorial manifesto presented as a coffee-table book, which has enough surface area to do justice to the theoretical world we inhabit.


1 Independent Publisher

We used to approach this task by telling a story about how the project started: Becoming Press started 5 years ago, in the form of an underground, vaguely-critical standalone magazine, to be published by Crossdressing Diogenes,1  a D.I.Y. fanzine and record label for electronic music in Cyprus that we ran between 2017–2021. Back then, we were just ravers following soundsystems around the Island of Venus, writing about dance music and parties. At some point, we started writing about matters that were tangential or entangled with raving, but were not about raving, and so we conceptualised a new magazine that could accommodate these new writings. The print magazine led to an online magazine, and the process of publishing texts online eventually led us back to printing books.2

Who we are and where we are from is not interesting in and of itself, but it does speak to the political biases inherent to the decision-making process, such as the decision to forego distributors and public funding, and the decision to communicate in a certain tone, for example — all of these granular elements that seem small but ultimately make Becoming Press highly unorthodox: we have no institutional backing, and have no connections with private equity or venture capital.3 We are more like a pirate radio, broadcasting from a ship stationed out at sea. We are no one, and we publish “from nowhere.”4  Ex Nihilo.

We used to take the idea of a boat quite seriously, writing about how these kinds of projects could be conceptualised as mechasuits that mediate access to cyberspace in the same way that submarines mediate access to the ocean floor.5 “Becoming is a machine,” we used to say, with negativity as its propulsion engine.6 Publishing was how the machine would keep itself running, and the process of receiving submissions and publishing them online and in print became a kind of breathing. With a head full of multinaturalism,7 we began to see the project as something with a life of its own, its own desires, its own ability to make its own friends—an alien lifeform. The living-machine did not live in order to breathe, however, it would breathe in order to live. We noted how this way of thinking aligned, mysteriously, with an old school Leninist formulation of “publishing as scaffolding”8 — literature itself is a meta-structure used to mold new structures or modulate those that already exist. Publishing itself is just a means to an end: perhaps it can be used to construct temporary, coccoon-like exoskeletons within which larval worlds—minor symbolic orders9—could coagulate, or perhaps we can use publishing to access scales which otherwise tower over us, as if remodeling the face of a clock tower. 

In that sense, we see discourse, publishing and writing as ‘world-building techniques.’ We externalize thought in the form of a substance or secretion called language,10 out of which we fashion signs that form the building-blocks of stories. Language becomes protocol, protocol becomes naturalized.11 As we tell stories, we call forth worlds in a cosmotechnical operation.12 

Diana was the goddess of the Hunt who ruled over “the undivided woods”—a metaphor for the periphery within which centers emerge like villages and cities within the wilderness—who, in the form of moonlight, watched over those trying to cross boundaries, especially the birthing of new life.13 As such “sad girls doing theory” may not exactly “save the world,”14 they might help the formation of new worlds. For those who have come to expect publishing houses dealing with theory and philosophy to maintain a certain neutrality, so much of the above may seem somewhat beside the point, but we intend, here, to communicate that, in the spirit of Diana, beside the point is exactly where we want to be.


2 Theoretical Literature

We publish a kind of literature that is deemed ‘theoretical,’ which is a term that is traditionally used, in the context of the semiotic realm of the overarching literary world, to negate ‘Capital-P Philosophy’; “Theorie” is something like ‘Philosophy’ but fundamentally different.15 For example, ‘critical theory is’ understood to be something concerned with diagnosis and negation, and tasks itself with denaturalizing (breaking the illusion) anything that presents itself as a priori — including Philosophy itself. ‘Materialist theory,’ also attempts precisely the task of “exiting Philosophy.”16 ‘Speculative theory’ works in an almost opposite direction to ‘critical theory,’ seeking to create new productive concepts, reaching beyond what can be verified, engaging in imaginative scenarios and building new frameworks. ‘Feminist theory,’ is not ‘theory about women’ or by women,17 but a kind of critical theory that works to undermine and denaturalize a specific a priori: power.18 These approaches to theory can merge together and can often work in tandem.

Throughout the development of this alternative to philosophy, theory would become closely attached to the word ‘praxis,’ a term which signified a consecrated moment of possibility where abstract theory would be able to interact with the material world. Over time, this possibility of praxis became synonymous with ‘action’, which was the most tangible or concrete example of how theory sedimented into reality — theory would only be justified insofar as it led to action. This would culminate in the concept of radical or revolutionary theory—theory that would inspire enough action to bring about deep structural changes to society. However, very much in the spirit of theory, it can be argued that the term action contains within it the same ideology that theorists would critique. Action, in the way that it is conventionally understood in ‘radical theory,’ is often precisely what marginalized people do not have access to, but beyond this, violence begets violence, and so even if we agree with the orthodoxy that historically emancipation is achieved through violent means, there is an underlying sense of being trapped in an endless cycle of violence. There are other ways in which we can understand how thought and language, organized into the literary form of theory, becomes, by means of sedimentation, hyperstition or protocolization, the world.

Magic, for example, either in and of itself, or in terms of ‘the magic of x,’ is something worth exploring within theory—what about the magic we all love to call cosmotechnicity, or even hyperstition?19 Fictions can become real—only fictions become real—and sigils can take the form of a book, or a series of comics, or even a library. Becoming Press is itself as much of a sigil as it is composed of other sigils composed of sigils and so on. Even the more direct theoreticians often have a certain sensitivity, or even proclivity, towards magical thinking—Louis Althusser, for example, at the end of his life, seems to yearn after what he calls “the underground current of materialism,”20 an anti-hegemonic counterflow of poets and philosophers who pass the flame of negativity down through history, and, in doing so, keep a particular dream alive. We take a different path to “radical theory,” and we do not see the value of theory as solely contingent upon its ability to incite revolution. 

The nature of the world—like Aphrodite herself—is that she always moves on; things get forgotten, stories are retold, histories get erased. We pursue the written record and the documentation of thoughts and perspectives, we create physical and digital reminders of everything we don’t want to forget. In this sense, the pythian mandate of Becoming Press is to continue feeding the underground current of materialism, to continue telling counternarratives, translating age old stories that inspire revolutionary hope into the language of the world we live in today. Everything will be different in 20 years, 50 years — our books try to imagine what it will be like to look back. Literature to be found on random bookshelves by survivors wandering the earth, or literature that may be read by A.I. agents trying to reconstruct a map of human history. When our world falls apart, when history crumbles to dust and ruins—that is de rarum natura—we hope that the stories we have commit to the earth, planted like trees, buried like bodies, swallowed by the ground and made into fossils, will remind us of the people we were lucky to share this crisis with, those who could, with their words alone, make us feel as though there is a point to living — that we suffer not for nothing. 

Language is the blood of this world of stories, flowing as literature, through arterial channels dug out by publishers over millennia. In this world, praxis can mean whispering into the ear of the Other,21 and listening to the voice of the outside; utterance drives the continuous production of reality—”it is with sound that you create new spacetimes, the word is the weapon, to destroy the old world, and build a new.”22

In one sense, we are just some girls braiding the grassy knoll, leaving nothing but signs of life.


3 Ex Nihilo / Negativity

“What is going on in that in-between there; what is going on in that forest, where the jaguar meets the human”23 — Lucas Ferraço Nassif

To dwell is to make a world of somewhere, to make a home in something, a place to situate your being. Philosophical negativity is a world apart from pessimism, and the metaphor of dwelling in negativity is to situate your being in nothingness. In simple terms, the negative is the outside, dwelling in negativity is to identify with the other,24 to feel a sense of belonging to the periphery and the margin. We publish in Berlin, but we are not from here, and we may not be here forever. The project started in Nicosia, but we aren’t exactly from there either. In the present, we exist mostly online, and as we suggested in the previous section, the books we publish will outlive us all, and will exist for more time after we are gone than while we are here. Statistically speaking, the majority of our audience could well dwell in the future, or eventually consist of invisible A.I. agents scouring cyberspace. So the idea begins by imagining that we identify with the inverse side, with that which is not present or visible, for example. Yet, we want to take the concept further, away from the negativity of Hegel, from the negative that is defined by its relation to the positive.25 

In other words, the negativity that we take as our subject is not the relative-negativity found in the dualism positive/negative, but rather the gap between the two; the primal ur-negativity, the ultrablack outside,26 or the undivided woods over which Diana presides. This negative-space, which tracks along the most fundamental schism or faultline, is the site of emergence.27 We look out into the ocean around the island and know that while we are born on land, we are not of the land, but of the Thalassa,28 both in the sense of the ocean and the Ferenczian primordial origins. Less a pirate radio, more sirens calling from the deep — the first cult of Tethys in history:

Tethys is articulated in Nail’s reading of Lucretius as an embodiment of cyclicality and sinuousness. When Gaia (Earth) castrates Ouranos (Sky), she does so with a sickle blade forged from Chronos (Time) Tethys is the curvature of that blade. Through time, the water reaches up into the sky pulling air back into the sea, and in doing so, creates the foam from which Aphrodite (Desire) arises29—Heaven arrives on Earth due to the ontological operation of folding.30

This position of negativity can also be articulated in the language of psychoanalysis where the word human refers to a neurotic subjectivity contoured by repression beyond which lies schizophrenia and psychosis. The psychotic and schizophrenic subjects are effectively shut out of the symbolic order, and thus are excluded from reality.31 Unlike the schizophrenic position advocated by Deleuze & Guattari, the exploration of psychotic subjectivity has, until now, remained mostly on Land — we must therefore think from the perspective of the Sea. We contend that theory itself is a psychotic mode of philosophy which can be used to build new subjectivities and new societies. In its attempt to get outside of the hegemonic form of thought, theory can, for now, play the role of preserving and circulating the counter narratives that negate and interpellate any given a priori.   




Endnotes

  1. Crossdressing Diogenes: https://xdiogenes.cargo.site/
  2. All of this is documented in (Mas, 2023).
  3. Becoming Press was ultimately funded by coffee shop trinkgeld, from a single print run of 50 magazines sold locally at parties.
  4. See also (Lerman, 2019).
  5. See (Mas, 2023).
  6. Whether Hegel, Marx or Deleuze, Negativity, as in the power of negation, is the driver of continuous flux. Hegel is accused of utilizing Becoming only as a means of returning to identity, whereas Marx & Deleuze articulate Becoming as non-linear and open-ended.
  7. In the sense of Multinaturalism. See (Viveiros de Castro, 2014).
  8. Originally a reference to (Lenin, 1901). See also Sezgin Boynik on this topic (RabRab Press): https://aaagit.org/rabrab/document/0.pdf
  9. This is a reference to a conversation between Claire Elise, Giorgi Vachnadze & Lucas Ferraço Nassif: https://becoming.press/christian-eschatology-of-artificial-intelligence-(2024)-book-discussion-with-giorgi-vachnadze,-lucas-ferraco-nassif-claire-elise
  10. See (Nassif, 2025) and the surrounding lectures: https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-(2025)-book-launch-with-lucas-ferra%C3%A7o-nassif-at-linha-de-sombra,-lisbon
  11. See Geert Lovink’s interview with Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo on Exocapitalism (2025). https://becoming.press/scales-of-virtualisation-exocapitalism-(2025)-interview-with-marek-poliks,-roberto-alonso-trillo,-and-geert-lovink
  12. For our position on Cosmotechnicity, see (Arsenault, 2026) and (Bluemink, 2026).
  13. See our presentation of (Nassif, 2025) at Linha de Sombra: https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-(2025)-book-launch-with-lucas-ferra%C3%A7o-nassif-at-linha-de-sombra,-lisbon
  14. Quoting "@Girlaccelerated" on Instagram.
  15. For a detailed history of Merve Verlag and the D.I.Y. origins of 'Theorie,' see (Felsch, 2021).
  16. See, for example, (Kolozova, 2024) in 'Materialism, Ancient and Modern'. The School of Materialist Research, 37:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsJ16vAYt64&t=4457s
  17. See the transcription of (Kolozova, 2026) 'We Are From Nowhere: Feminism Today': https://becoming.press/transcription-feminism-from-nowhere-with-katerina-kolozova
  18. See (Kolozova and Joy, 2016).
  19. See (Publig and Rørbo, 2026).
  20. See (Althusser, 2006) and (Nail, 2018).
  21. See Chapter 5: 'The Ear as the Negative Organ', in (Mas, 2023).
  22. Quoted from a Rasheeda Philips radio performance, documented in Chapter 8 of (Szepanski and Sinclaire, 2025).
  23. See (Nassif and Elise, 2025): https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-(2025)-book-launch-with-lucas-ferra%C3%A7o-nassif-at-linha-de-sombra,-lisbon
  24. See (Arsenault, 2025).
  25. See (Laruelle, 2024).
  26. See (Szepanski, 2020).
  27. This also pertains to the Japanese concept of 'Ma' (間).
  28. See Unconscious/Television Book Discussion at Ifilnova, Lisbon: https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-book-discussion-at-ifilnova,-lisbon
  29. See (Nail, 2018). 
  30. For another concise account of folding, see (Poliks and Trillo, 2025).
  31. A concise definition of the psychotic is given by Maks Valenčič in Disintegrator Live! (Last speaker). For more on this topic, see upcoming lecture with Maks Valenčič on the topic of the psychotic [Coming July 2026].

References / Reading List

Althusser, L. (2006) Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings. United Kingdom: Verso.
Arsenault, L. M. (2025) Of Enemies & Venison: First Materials for an Aztec Cosmotechnic. Berlin/Nicosia: Becoming.
Bluemink, M. (2026) The Future is Not Lost: On Music, Technology and the Creation of New Worlds. Berlin/Nicosia: Becoming.
Felsch, P. (2021) The Summer of Theory. Chichester: Wiley.
Kolozova, K. (2026) 'We Are From Nowhere: Feminism Today' [talk transcription]. Nicosia/Berlin: Becoming Press. Available at: https://becoming.press/transcription-feminism-from-nowhere-with-katerina-kolozova
Kolozova, K. and Joy, E. (2016) After The Speculative Turn: Realism, Philosophy, and Feminism. Earth: Punctum Books.
Laruelle, F. (2024) The Black Universe and the Human Origins of Colour. From Decision to Heresy. Falmouth: Urbanomic.
Lenin, V. I. (1901) What is to be Done? Stuttgart: Dietz.
Lerman, L. (2019) I'm From Nowhere. Troy: CLASH.
Mas, N. (2023) Affects & Dreams: A Manual for Becoming. Nicosia: Becoming Press.
Nail, T. (2018) Lucretius I. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Nassif, L. F. (2025) Unconscious/Television. Berlin/Nicosia: Becoming.
Poliks, M. and Trillo, R. A. (2025) Exocapitalism: Economies with Absolutely No Limits. Berlin/Nicosia: Becoming.
Publig, S. and Rørbo, M. (2026) Digital Occultism. Ljubljana: Aksioma.
Szepanski, A. (2020) Ultrablack of Music, Vol. 1. Frankfurt: NON.
Szepanski, A. and Sinclaire, P. (2025) Ultrablack of Music, Vol. II. London: Zer0.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2014) Cannibal Metaphysics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.


Sitography

https://xdiogenes.cargo.site/
https://aaagit.org/rabrab/document/0.pdf
https://becoming.press/christian-eschatology-of-artificial-intelligence-(2024)-book-discussion-with-giorgi-vachnadze,-lucas-ferraco-nassif-claire-elise
https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-(2025)-book-launch-with-lucas-ferra%C3%A7o-nassif-at-linha-de-sombra,-lisbon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsJ16vAYt64&t=4457s
https://becoming.press/transcription-feminism-from-nowhere-with-katerina-kolozova
https://becoming.press/unconscioustelevision-book-discussion-at-ifilnova,-lisbon
https://becoming.press/scales-of-virtualisation-exocapitalism-(2025)-interview-with-marek-poliks,-roberto-alonso-trillo,-and-geert-lovink
Becoming Press  v4.5
©2026, Berlin/Nicosia

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