THE PURSUIT OF VIOLENCE

The extent to which violence is embedded in our culture often goes underestimated and misinterpreted. There exists a vague and scattered dialogue about violence in modern media, but it usually dissolves to nothing more than speculation or political agendas. This discussion gets resurrected in extremes, either attached to a larger tragedy in the news as a fear mongering sign of the times, or as a threatened and insulted response to that coverage. This back and forth has drawn definitive lines separating the parties involved, there are those who seek to vilify this culture, equally many who argue to protect it, while the majority of people do not want to worry about it. This discourse needs the acceptance of a middle ground and a readjustment to discuss violence as it exits rather than through vague speculation and sensation. Photography has the power to slow down time, to draw out otherwise unnoticed moments into a conversation. It is also perceived with a high level of credibility, to lend something solid to a dialogue bloated with abstracted studies and inferences. I seek to record interactions between people and the culture of violence in perhaps the most targeted, and relatively young, medium of video games to document exactly where the violence is dangerously overlooked and where it is harmlessly enjoyed.