Immediacy: Or, the Style of Too Late Capitalism

Contemporary cultural style uplifts transparency and rapid uptake. These are values absorbed from our current economic conditions of "disintermediation" cutting out the middleman. Like Uber, but for art. Immediacy names this style to make sense of what we lose when the contradictions of 21st century capitalism demand that aesthetics negate mediation.

Delugent realness as aesthetic program synchs with the economic imperative to intensify circulation when production stagnates. "Flow" is the ultimate 21st century buzzword, but speedy circulation grinds art down to the nub. And the bad news is, political turmoil and social challenges require more mediation. Collective will, inspiring ideas, and deliberate construction are the only way out, but our dominant style forgoes them.

Considering original streaming TV, popular literature, artworld trends, and academic theories, Immediacy explains the recent obsession with immersion and intolerance of representation, and points to alternative forms in photography, TV, novels, and constructive theory, that prioritize distance, impersonality, and big ideas instead.