Video Art

bill viola, born in new york, USA in 1951, is a contemporary video artist and a pioneer in video installation. Viola's works are mostly related to multimedia, such as video devices, electronic music, radio and television, etc.

in the early days, Viola worked as a technician in the art museum. from 1974 to 1976, he worked as the technical director in an Art Studio in Florence, Italy, "Art/Tapes/22", which was also the first video art Studio in Europe at that time.

most of the themes of p>Viola's works revolve around life and death, lust, 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 theme that often appears in his works. (This is similar to Susan Hiller)

Dualism is also something that can often be 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 moving. Viola likes to take pictures in slow motion that we don't usually notice, such as those that appear in movies. Or it is particularly private, and the general camera will not take pictures. (For example, Nantes Triptych is composed of a scene of a baby, a man floating in the water, and an image of Viola's mother in a coma before her death.)

Personally, I like the quiet and dramatic atmosphere reflected by Viola in her works, especially under the rendering of the lighting 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 and supernatural feeling. In fact, I think Viola's image 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. It may be because Viola himself is a technician (although his major in university is also related to art). He combined his mastery of electronic technology with his in-depth research on the theme, making him an incomparable existence for other video artists.

of course, this is also related to the age in which he lived. In the 196s, due to the general development of photography technology, NamJune Paik started the era of Video Art. In the 197s, it just happened to catch up with the rise of the first batch of video art. As the first group to develop video art, Viola also caught up with the good times.