Bill Viola
Bill Viola
Bill Violais a contemporary video artist whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death and aspects of consciousness...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMultimedia Artist
Date of Birth25 January 1951
CountryUnited States of America
leaves object walks
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.
aware beings engaged great grounded history human newest push wanting
There is a big push that we all are engaged in, in wanting to have the newest in innovation - and I think that's all really great. But I also feel that human beings need to be aware of, and grounded in, history.
cycle fine human large major normal ways
The world is fine and everything is normal and then, bang, you just get bowled over by the wrathful deities somehow. That happens in very small ways and happens in very large ways when you have a major conflagration in the world. It's another cycle of existence of human beings.
actual bad witness
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.
art changed code depths future guys historians software
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.
alone artists basic culture earth element history human matter property
Creativity is not the property of artists alone. It's a basic element of the human character, no matter what culture you're in, no matter where you are on Earth or in history.
taught
This thing called the camera, that takes everything in equally, taught me a lot about how to see.
composer structure time
When you're making video, you're giving structure to time, which is what a composer does.
forms human
I cry a lot. Usually once a day. I think it's one of the most profound forms of human expression.
beat good insecure mean method paranoid terms
One of the most important things for me in terms of my working method is doubt. I get very insecure about my ideas. And I don't say 'insecure' in kind of a paranoid way. I mean just: 'Are they good enough?' 'Is this the right thing to do?' I really beat myself up over that.
buildings cars earth fallen historical images landscape realize street time
If you look at landscape in historical terms, you realize that most of the time we have been on Earth as a species, what has fallen on our retina is landscape, not images of buildings and cars and street lights.
art remain trying wake
Art is, for me, the process of trying to wake up the soul. Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.
brings dangers events goes greatest happening response television therefore thoughtful time velocity
The velocity and knee-jerk response to events happening in real time that television brings us precludes any kind of reflection or contemplation and therefore analysis. And that's been one of the greatest political dangers in the post-war era. The idea of the reasoned, thoughtful response goes out of the window.
coming experience lights loud physical pieces roaring sound
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.