Abstract

Film, dramaturgy and literature exhibit increasingly more episodes of cruelty in the interactions between the characters. With its focus on the core ideas about escalation of violence, this paper examines the fundamental reasons for the upsurge in depictions of violence in art. The article demonstrates social, cultural and anthropological factors contributed to shaping the technosphere which impedes the comprehension of the relationship and the contrast between life and death. Without this comprehension, a cultural dysfunction entails the existential crisis, hinders feeling fully alive, and provokes a “safe” virtual way to generate a limit situation that restores “life’s integrity” experience. Art that demonstrates violent scenes is one of these methods. In addition, and this is the first paper to analyze this, the extensive type of creativity dominates the postindustrial society culture. Research demonstrates that extensive creativity does not contain an ethical component and nor foster immunity to violence. On the contrary, by directing an individual towards exploring and transforming the external world, it provokes violence, since the nature of expansion is a priori forced. The authors conclude that escalation of violence in art testifies to the deficit of cultural methods that allow to satisfy a person’s existential needs.