Terrorism as Spectacle: Video Game Aesthetics in Barcelona Attack

Lorenzo Taiuti's editorial on Artribune examines the Barcelona terrorist attack (and the subsequent Manhattan incident) through the lens of media culture, questioning the influence of video games, cinema, and spectacle on the perpetrators. He notes the extreme youth of the terrorists and the rapid, cinematic execution of the attack—the truck slalom, the crash, the carjacking, the motorcycle escape—which mirrors countless video game sequences. Taiuti draws parallels to J.G. Ballard's 'Crash' and films like 'Fast and Furious,' suggesting that pop culture iconography, combined with jihadist propaganda, shapes the imagination of attackers. He also questions the invisibility of terrorist networks in the digital age, despite extensive surveillance, and criticizes the lack of data sharing among European states. The article concludes that the general reaction strips the event of political-religious motivations, defining the killers as 'Natural Born Killers.'