Death photography txt

Bill viola, 195 1 Born in New York, USA, is a contemporary video artist and a pioneer of video installation. Viola's works are mostly related to multimedia, such as video equipment, electronic music, radio and television, etc.

In the early days, Viola worked as a technician in an art museum. 1974- 1976 served as the technical director of an art studio "Art/Tapes/22" in Florence, Italy, which was also the first video art studio in Europe at that time.

Viola's works mostly focus on life and death, love, emotion and spiritual world. He is also interested in some religions. Ancient traditional mysticism, especially Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism and Islamic Sufism, and supernatural elements are also a frequent theme in his works. It's a bit like susan hiller. )

Dualism is also something often seen in Viola's works, such as life and death, fire and water, light and darkness, noise and silence. Viola's works have always been full of a dramatic atmosphere, just like famous paintings. Viola likes to take pictures in slow motion that we don't usually notice, such as those in movies. Or it is particularly private, and the general camera will not take pictures. (For example, the Nantes triptych consists of a video of a child giving birth, a man floating in the water, and an image of Viola's mother in a coma before her death. )

Personally, I prefer the quiet and dramatic atmosphere reflected in Viola's works, especially under the lighting rendering of the whole installation. The themes of supernatural, spiritual world and mysticism are also of interest to me. Viola herself seems to have been pursuing this ghostly supernatural feeling. In fact, I think the image of Viola itself is the core of the work. Although the on-site installation itself is also very important, his film itself is already very impactful and infectious.

In fact, multimedia devices and video devices have become more and more popular in recent years, and more and more artists are doing this. Maybe it's because Viola is a technician (although his major in college is also related to art). He combined his mastery of electronic technology with his in-depth study of the theme, making him an incomparable existence for other video artists.

Of course, this is also related to his time. In 1960s, due to the general development of photography technology, NamJune Paik opened the era of image art. 1970s, just in time for the rise of the first batch of video art. As the first batch of people who started to develop video art, Viola also caught up with the good times.