Dualism in Life and Art Internationally recognized, Bill Viola is one of the leading video artists of today. Creating video works in various forms for over 35 years to include videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances and flat panel video pieces, Viola has played a crucial role in establishing video as a form of contemporary art. (BV) Using a visual language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicate to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way. (BV) Receiving his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973 he began traveling. He spent 18 months in Italy and met video artists Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, and Vito Acconci. Since 1976, he has traveled extensively to the Solomon Islands in 1976 to record traditional music and dance; to Java, Indonesia, in 1977 to record traditional performing arts; and that same year to Australia, where he met his wife Kira Perov. He went on to study Zen Buddhism during his 18-month stay in Japan. The evolution of Viola's work has been closely connected to the evolution of technology. Starting out in black and white video in 1970, Viola knew he would continue with this process as his art medium. Initially he worked with himself because he knew what he wanted and how to portray it but soon reached a point where he needed to be behind the camera. Through numerous residencies, commissions and independent works, he has gained many collaborators. Since the late 1970s, he has worked with wife and partner Kira Perov, the studio's executive director. While many video artists have been quick to adopt new editing technologies to their medium, Viola relies little on computer manipulation. Perhaps the most technically challenging part of his work is his use of extreme slow motion. He accomplishes this "special effect" or expression of time by using time-lapse, slow motion and reversals evoking cycles of day and night, birth, life, death and renewal. Often combining old technology with new to create the dual visual and symbolic images in his video, he focuses not on what can be seen but
on what can be felt. Deeply involved in Zen Buddhism and the mystical traditions of East and West, Viola's preoccupations have always been the inner or spiritual-self and the boundaries of consciousness. From the death of his parents to birth of his children in the 1990s, and his childhood memory of near drowning, which seams to have had a great impact on him, continually appears in most of his videos, reveals his work is often drawn on his own life to explore recurring themes of birth, death, self-discovery and personal transformation. Focusing on the central themes of human consciousness and experience Viola constantly explores dualism. The idea that you can't understand what you're looking at unless you know its opposite, life and death, light and dark, water and fire etc., all encompassing the fragility of human life can be viewed in his works. Equally, the subject matter of western medieval and Renaissance devotional art have informed his aesthetic. An example of his use of Renaissance subject matter appeared in 1995 when Viola represented the United States at the 46th Venice Biennale. He produced one of his best-known works The Greeting, a contemporary interpretation of Pontormo's The Visitation. Viola discusses his process for The Greeting.
In the next two videos the theme of duality or opposites and spirituality is prevalent. Viola expresses the symbolic gesture that water and fire possess: water has the power to abolish, dissolve, purify, wash away and regenerate, the reservoir of all possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation. Also the unique property of water, especially in this work visually and technically, is to take the shape of that which surrounds it but to never possess a specific shape by itself. Fire is related to the sun and the powers of transformation, change and purification. Fire and heat are also used to symbolize human emotions. Fire's basic movement is upward rather than downward like water. In The Crossing Viola displaces space and time (6 min.) in this 1996 dual video projection piece in which the visual force is amplified by high-intensity stereo sound was filmed in an airplane hanger over two 48-hour periods with help from a motion picture special effects company. Actual filming took place at night. The same set-up was used to film the approach in both the fire and water portions. In the original installation, synchronized image sequences were projected onto both sides of a double-sided screen, each of which showed a dark human form walking in slow motion toward the viewer. The figure eventually filled both displays, stopped, paused, and was slowly consumed by a growing mass of roaring flames on one side, and by a trickle of water that swells into a rushing deluge on the other. (Guggenheim Collection)
Making of The Crossing has been documented with Photographs, Video and. Technical information is explained by Viola as he talks about his specialized cameras used to create his videos along with gallery floor plans. (SFMOMA) The second video, Ocean Without a Shore was inspired by 20th Century Senegalese poet and storyteller Birago Diop's poem, The Dead are not Dead. Hearing things more than beings, listening to the voice of fire, the voice of water. Hearing in wind the weeping bushes, sighs of our forefathers. The dead are never gone: they are in the shadows. The dead are not in earth: they're in the rustling tree, the groaning wood, water that runs, water that sleeps; they're in the hut, in the crowd, the dead are not dead. The dead are never gone, they're in the breast of a woman, they're in the crying of a child, in the flaming torch. The dead are not in the earth: they're in the dying fire, the weeping grasses, whimpering rocks, they're in the forest, they're in the house, the dead are not dead. Ocean Without a Shore was created in 2007 and is a color High-Definition triptych video/sound installation. Originally installed at the Church of San Gallo, Venice, the work contains two 65" plasma screens, one 103" screen mounted vertically and six loudspeakers or three pairs stereo sound.
Viola explains the meaning behind this work given its location and content. "Ocean Without a Shore is about the presence of the dead in our lives. The three stone altars in the church of San Gallo become portals for the passage of the dead to and from our world. Presented as a series of encounters at the intersection between life and death, the video sequence documents a succession of individuals slowly approaching out of darkness and moving into the light. Each person must then break through an invisible threshold of water and light in order to pass into the physical world. Once incarnate however, all beings realize that their presence is finite and so they must eventually turn away from material existence to return from where they came. The cycle repeats without end. Text Bill Viola 2007 (Lenscultureweblog) An example of one of the characters can be viewed here. "Because I work without any language or lines of dialogue in my pieces, I can show Ocean in villages in China or Africa, and people would know what it's about," says Viola. "The fundamentals of the human condition - ecstasy, tragedy, birth and death - are universally understood. All of us have entered life through one door and will, at a certain point down the road, find ourselves at the threshold of another." (BNET)
Bill Viola has created numerous works containing the themes discussed: Reflecting Pool (1977-79), The Passing (1991), The Passions, LOVE/DEATH - The Tristan Project (10 works), Five Angels for the Millennium (2001) (5 works) to name a few. "The connection between contemporary art and contemporary spirituality is an urgent and extremely important one," Viola said in a prepared statement. "In these times of instability and conflict there is growing recognition by both secular and religious institutions that peace and understanding will not be possible without the universal language and common vision that only art can provide. Artists of all cultures and traditions have a vital role to play in envisioning this new future and inspiring the creative dialogue necessary for its success." BV Bibliography Bill Viola http://www.billviola.com/ BV Lenscultureweblog www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2007/08/bill-viola-ocea.html Tate Channel http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/26506128001 Video Data Bank www.vdb.org Guggenheim Collection www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_160b_2viewb.html Bridget Alsdorf
SFMOMA www.sfmoma.org/media/features/viola/index.html BNET Stasukevich, Iain "Short Takes". American Cinematographer. FindArticles.com. 15 Nov, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7119/is_200803/ai_n32265018/