War Torn 2.0
Artist Statement (Excerpt)
Video games are constantly evolving, not only in their formal aspects, but their content as well. With more independent video game developers creating serious games, society is beginning to see that video games are able to communicate meaningful and thought provoking experiences. I strongly believe that my serious game War Torn provides a political and critical reflection of our culture.[i] Reflecting on the claims surrounding games by media theorist Marshall McLuhan, War Torn’s montaged components of war imagery from some of our western cultures most popular video games, movies and news media, can potentially reveal our culture’s core values.[ii] The critique I wished to convey in War Torn is how with different forms of media we see a typical inaccurate portrayal of war as something glorious. I wished to unearth this and the dangers presented to us when we passively consume the ideologies that developers of media content inject into their products. War in reality is not something glamorous, it is filled with impossible choices and circumstances that ravage and scar the minds of our soldiers and civilians.
[i] Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas H. Smith and Susana P. Tosca, Understanding Video Games, 2008 (Routledge) 28.
[ii] Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas H. Smith and Susana P. Tosca, Understanding Video Games, 2008 (Routledge) 28.