-in terms of content, structure and the formal inherent properties of video
-the relationship of experimental video to historical art and film practise
-what's the different to mainstream
1. Bill Viola Facts (BILL VIOLA ARTIST BIOGRAPHY, no date)
-"received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973 where he studied visual art with Jack Nelson and electronic music with Franklin Morris".
-His works focus on universal human experiences
-He traveled places to develop different projects.
-He learnt Zen Buddhism in Japan.
-Music is a big part in his work.
-His wife is working closely with him as a executive director of Bill Viola Studio.
2. His Experimental Videos
-can be seen here: http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/bill-viola#artworks/1
3. His Working process
-Bring a pile of books and lock himself outside of distractions to write down his inspirations in a notebook. (Kidel, 2003)
-Fire Woman - shoot the reflection of the water, 35mm camera, an images of an image.
4. Quotes (Bill Viola quotes at BrainyQuote, no date)
These are the quotes that I like and related to the topic of research in some way.
"Video artists being at the low end of the totem pole economically, one of the ways we survive is to go around showing work and giving these talks."
"When you're making video, you're giving structure to time, which is what a composer does."
"The fundamental aspect of video is not the image, even though you can stand in amazement at what can be done electronically, how images can be manipulated and the really extraordinary creative possibilities. For me the essential basis of video is the movement - something that exists at the moment and changes in the next moment."
"The very first video experience I had was in high school. They brought a black-and-white closed-circuit surveillance camera into the classroom. I will never forget, as a kid, looking at that image."
"When you come into my pieces, it's not an intellectual experience, it's a physical experience. It's coming at your body. There's light, there's sound, the lights in some pieces are going on and off. There's loud roaring sound happening."
"This thing called the camera, that takes everything in equally, taught me a lot about how to see."
"The future art historians are going to be software guys who are going to go into the depths of the code to find out what was changed hundreds of years before."
"In the 1970s, a lot of critics didn't understand video. I got a lot of bad reviews. But film-makers didn't understand what we were doing, either. There were actual fistfights between film-makers and video-makers. I was witness to one."
"You can always tell in a movie when they are setting you up for something. If someone leaves an important object on the table and walks away, the camera will have some way of indicating that to you."
5. About Moving Images (UC Berkeley Events, 2011)
-Extended our senses, across space and time, function as out of body experiences.
-He likes the fact that cameras have narrow focus, creating intension. But whether it is good or bad depends on the intension of the user.
-His work sometimes been projected onto the walls of the churches and the space is filled with music. It is just like the audiences being surrounded by the work, not like some of the video artists today that project one flat moving image onto the wall, which is just like a form of cinema. What he wants is to have the audiences to engage with the space.
-Artists detoxify things.
6. Summaries
By researching Bill Viola the video artist I learn a lot about the aspect of art and the difference to mainstream film. For example, he would experiment materials that to be filmed and think of how to put the work into the space for the audiences to engage with it, while mainstream film is to be shown by projecting it onto one surface with audiences focusing the plot.
But there are also similarities between film and video arts.
Sources
BILL VIOLA ARTIST BIOGRAPHY (no date) Available at: http://www.billviola.com/biograph.htm (Accessed: 2 January 2016).
Bill Viola quotes at BrainyQuote (no date) Available at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_viola.html (Accessed: 10 January 2016).
Bill Viola: The eye of the heart (2003) Directed by Mark Kidel UK: .
UC Berkeley Events (2011) Bill Viola: ‘The movement in the moving image’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0RCkNugozU (Accessed: 2 January 2016).
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