Immediacy’s fluid dissolution provokes sadistic spectacle as its aesthetic excess

Evidence

As we explored in “Imaginary,” smoothness is piqued by shattering, and in “Writing,” immediacy’s fluid dissolve of plot and character into presence and ambience also incites irruptions of sadistic spectacle. “Video” argues for the continuity of this style across streaming aesthetics, where immediacy surges in spectacularization as supplement to looping plotlessness and phenomenalized camerawork. … The splatter itself is the point: the recent worldwide rise in horror and gore dramatizes crises while literalizing the stream. Eviscerative spectacles in the Saw films or other torture porn spray torrents of blood, materializing the infrastructure of image circulation in extreme deluge. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 237