Diving into all-time fave generative art by the famous contemporary video artist: Bill Viola

“The Passing” by Bill Viola.

Viola, placed at the centre of this personal exploration of altered time and space, represents his mortality in such forms as a glistening newborn baby, his deceased mother, and the artist himself, floating, submerged under water.

 

“Tristan’s Ascension”

When video art becomes life, death and transcendence

Looking into both these video art, a generative art in a way, they are similar in making us audiences feel immersed into the art, in a deep sense. We feel spiritually inclined or touched by the artworks.

We, our souls, feel deeply about it. He uses a total environment that envelops us, viewers, in images and sounds. The slow movement of water for example, and the droplets of sounds, the blackout room, and just you – to really get us involved, emotionally and I guess mentally.

“Everything in this room right now comes from somewhere else and is just passing through us at this moment and it will continue to live and grow. Ultimately we all come from the stars; our earth, our world, our bodies, our bones, mosquitoes are made from the stuff of the stars, literally, and it just keeps getting reconfigured. It’s a profound and very moving thing. ” Bill Viola Interview with ‘The Spirit of Things’–Radio National–Australia)

 

Do you think it’s important, as a viewer and also a creator, that we feel something so powerful, or at least feel something, after entering the interactive artwork?

That’s something to think about. But my answer to this, for sure, is a yes – it is highly important. You would want your viewers to be fully engaged with your work that when they leave that environment of the work, they leave with strong emotions, or thoughts.