[2] His work has been tied to the development of speculative realism,[3][4] and departs from the formal conventions of academic writing, incorporating unorthodox and esoteric influences.
[6][7] During this era, Land drew inspiration from post-structuralist theory and leftist thinkers such as Bataille, Marx, and Deleuze & Guatarri as well as science fiction, rave culture, and the occult.
Land obtained a PhD in 1987 in the University of Essex under David Farrell Krell, with a thesis on Heidegger's 1953 essay Die Sprache im Gedicht, which is about Georg Trakl's work.
At Warwick, Land and Sadie Plant co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), an interdisciplinary research group described by philosopher Graham Harman as "a diverse group of thinkers who experimented in conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources: futurism, technoscience, philosophy, mysticism, numerology, complexity theory, and science fiction, among others".
Along with the other members of CCRU, Land wove together ideas from the occult, cybernetics, science fiction, and poststructuralist philosophy to try to describe the phenomena of techno-capitalist acceleration.
Fisher underscores in particular how Land's personality during the 1990s could catalyze changes in those engaging with his work through what Kodwo Eshun describes as a manner "immediately open, egalitarian, and absolutely unaffected by academic protocol" which could dramatise "theory as a geopolitico-historical epic.
"[6] Nihilist philosopher Ray Brassier, also formerly from the University of Warwick, stated in 2017 that "Nick Land has gone from arguing 'Politics is dead', 20 years ago, to this completely old-fashioned, standard reactionary stuff.