Viola is a pioneer of video art, and has been one of its most important practitioners for more than forty years. Characteristic qualities of his work, such as the interplay between movement and stasis, and the testing of the viewer’s perception through multiple sensations, have become recurring elements of the medium as a whole.
Tiny Deaths was made in 1993. Barely visible figures are perceived in the darkened space until crescendos of light and sound bring moments of drama. The three projections envelop the viewer in the intense experience of the appearance and sudden disappearance of these presences. ‘The struggle we are witnessing today is not between conflicting moral beliefs’, Viola observed in 1992. ‘It is between our inner and our outer lives, and our bodies are the area where this belief is being played out.’ His works of the 1990s consistently show the body as the site for physical transformations – often through immersion in light or water – that embody these profound concerns with transformation and mortality.
While Tiny Deaths opens up broad possibilities around the meaning and transience of existence, Viola’s recent works address spiritual themes more directly.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/bill-viola
Tiny Deaths was made in 1993. Barely visible figures are perceived in the darkened space until crescendos of light and sound bring moments of drama. The three projections envelop the viewer in the intense experience of the appearance and sudden disappearance of these presences. ‘The struggle we are witnessing today is not between conflicting moral beliefs’, Viola observed in 1992. ‘It is between our inner and our outer lives, and our bodies are the area where this belief is being played out.’ His works of the 1990s consistently show the body as the site for physical transformations – often through immersion in light or water – that embody these profound concerns with transformation and mortality.
While Tiny Deaths opens up broad possibilities around the meaning and transience of existence, Viola’s recent works address spiritual themes more directly.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/bill-viola