Bill Viola

*sorry I didn't get to this earlier, I've been out of town!

Bill Viola:

•pioneer of video art/installation, expanding the form through content, technology, and historical reach
•began experimenting with video in the 1970s at Syracuse University
•creates full length films as well as shorter video installations
•uses video to explore self-knowledge and universal human experiences (birth, death)
•lives and works currently in Long Beach, CA
•inspired by Eastern and Western art
•also influenced by spiritual traditions (Zen Buddhism, Christian Mysticism)
•subjective thoughts, collective memories
•viewer can directly experience his art, fully surrounded and enveloped in the installation
•work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, Guggenheim Berlin, Guggenheim New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Getty Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
•search for meaning of human consciousness through spiritual, psychological, and personal terms
•examples of cluttered, emotional mindscape
•explores human states of mind
•relationship between human perception and objective reality


here is the site that didn't work in class (so you can look at home if you're interested):
http://www.sfmoma.org/espace/viola/dhtml/content/viola_gallery/BV07.html (direct link to "Slowly Turning Narrative", the piece I focused on in the paper)
http://www.sfmoma.org/espace/viola/fr_splash.html (link to the site that contains many of Viola's videos)