Bill Viola Interview: Cameras are Keepers of the Souls
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ม.ค. 2019
- “The real things are under the surface.” When video artist Bill Viola was 6 years old he fell into a lake, all the way to the bottom, to a place which seemed like paradise. “There’s more than just the surface of life,” Viola explains.
American Bill Viola (born 1951) is a pioneer in video art. In this interview, Viola talks about his development as an artist and his most important breakthroughs. As a child, Bill Viola felt that the world inside his head was more real than the outside world. Viola discovered video in 1969. The blue light from the first camera he experienced reminded him of the water in that beautiful lake he almost died in when he was 6 years old.
The first video piece Viola did on his own was “Tape I” from 1972 when he was still at university. Viola replaced the university art theories with his own secret underground path, through Islamic mystics, to Buddhism, to Christianity and finally to St John of the Cross. It was a very liberating experience for him when he first started calling his artworks what they actually were to him.
Viola once felt that home videos should be kept separate to his artwork, but the sorrow of his mother’s death, and the difficulty of understanding this transition from life to “disappearance”, slowly changed his point of view. He realized that things could not be kept separate. Viola now sees the cameras as keepers of the soul, he explains. The medium holds onto life, a kind of understanding of feelings, keeping them alive.
Bill Viola was interviewed by Christian Lund, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in London, 2011.
Camera: Marie Friis
Grading: Honey Biba Beckerlee
Edited by Martin Kogi
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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An insightful and moving interview. I experienced a fabulous exhibit of Bill Viola's videos yesterday in Liege. Beautiful!!
This artist is a Rembrandt in our times. Artists who express at that depth are rare. They are what we called Masters.
I gained soulful meaning from this video and that's all I know.
I love that the auto-captions say "I made this PEACE Room for St John of the Cross". A bit of machine soul shining through. Many thanks for the video. I love Viola's work and words so much; what a beacon for authentic, healing art - even his voice is healing.
Just found out that I'm not the only one that admires water so much for what it is...
thank you so much for sharing
Bill Viola is a true master artist. Thanks for these videos.
Amazing! Viola has completely reshaped my view of art history, thank you for these incredible interviews.
Really profoundly beautiful interview.
Bill Viola's work first made an impression on me when I saw his redwood forest installation at Capp Street Project in San Francisco in 1989. Later, his work was shown in a retrospective at San Francisco's MOMA in 1999. For me his "Room for St. John of the Cross" was the most deeply moving in the entire exhibition. (There were others that were plenty amazing.) It's great to hear Bill speak at length about that installation. I will never forget that jerky image of the dark ominous mountains in the background with the howling wind filling the room loudly.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Love this
Wow..This interview is incredible
very interesting....
thanks for sharing..
holy grail
Incredible. I got goosebumps listening to him!
You need help then this guy spits garbage lmao 😂
Extraordinary!
Thanks for your wise thoughts Bill Viola and good to learn more about your background of your video art. We have heard of your work since our early video days when Dean and I worked with Raindance and edited Radical Software in NYC. Hope we can connect one of these years.
Wow!
fantastic !
I appreciate his melancholic and profound views on death. It makes life a bit easier to deal with.
“Life is a dream come true
And Death is its awakening”
Don’t remember where I read this… Bill Viola’s take on death brought it up~
nice!!
BILL VIOLA MUST BE A MONK!
I didn't get that from this vid.. I felt he was trying to hard and fell short
Don't hate me for speaking my mind but other then personal experience he has no idea 😂 what up from down lol
oh
Wonderful
Wow just wow lmao 😂
Wow
I hope that a wow this guy is a nut bag 😂🤔🤗
2022
They are more than keepers of souls.
They record souls & can show the future of a living being by what they capture & show it though the persons eyes. Look at images of murder victims & take note of the colour RED their eyes display when they are alive.
Big Boy s ,
Bill Viola is an amazing artist..but how many of us missed the point that scenes like this actually took place when local Police turned fire hoses onto people in states like Louisiana during the marches for civil rights?
If you record every second of a person's life until they die, and replay it, does that mean they are still alive?
you could make a religion out of this
This video could be alot better if you had some music playing in the background. Still amazing though.
so much meaning doesnt feel right
Cf
Cf? 🧐
just gonna leave this here: th-cam.com/video/IB7Y8hd_wHU/w-d-xo.html
whatever
Bull
Guess you and I are the only folks who saw this and thought he was crazy lol 😂
I could tell in 5 seconds he trys way to hard .. and the video almost immediately reminded me of others who try pump there own ego 😂 with nonsense 😂
This video is the reason I will not knowingly buy a game his name attached
He seriously reminds me of a dude 😂 who hangs out every day.. love that dude but he is a nutter who would suck this up 😉🙃... But seriously if any one believes anything you say they are as crazy as you lmao 😂
the man is a pioneer in video art and will be remembered by history as a great artist. His work is full of meanings but unfortunately you cannot understand it
Who knew a comment from over a year ago written by a brainless dolt could make me so disappointed. I hope someday you're able to see what you should be seeing.
@@matthewmarinelli6527 It's true though. There's an essence of full of shitness. It's the human. Maybe the ego. To me it's clear. You cannot take credit for the art since you cannot take credit for your own existence. As soon as you say I'm the artists "I" did this then your full of shit. That's clear to me now. End of the day it's just the human which is a childlike being allowed to play with the toys in existence. The child, NOT the parent. The parent is beyond all this play. Maybe the parent is the purely observer/observing.
Bill Viola is a true master artist. Thanks for these videos