Ocean Without a Shore

The fourth video in the five-part digital-image cycle project "Going Forth By Day" (2002), "The Voyage" features an elderly man who is dying, surrounded by his family, as a boat below filled with his possessions awaits him.

“Transfiguration refers to a rare process whereby both the substance and essence of an entity is reconfigured. In physical terms, a transfiguration is a change in form, a remodeling of appearance. The word derives from the ancient Greek ‘metemorphothe’ or 'metamorphosis,’ suggesting a complete reformation. However, the word takes on its fullest meaning in the spiritual context when it refers to the moment when a person or an object is transformed not by external means but from within. The resulting change is absolute and thorough, affecting the heart and soul of the subject. Although the outward appearance can sometimes be altered in this process as well, it is not necessary. A deeper, more profound, complete transformation occurs inside, out of sight and, for a person it reformulates the very fiber of their being, finally radiating outward to affect everything around it.”

The ascent of the soul in the space after death as it is awakened and drawn up in a backwards flowing waterfall.

The Space Between the Teeth is based on the structure of acoustic phenomena and the psychological dynamics of a man screaming at the end of a long dark corridor. With each successive scream, the camera point of view hurtles at high velocity along the length of the hallway in decreasing increments. The corridor and the cinematic structuring of the camera's advance act as metaphors for passage and transition between two worlds, bridged by the individual's cathartic screams. Ultimately, the image of the man at the end of the corridor is transformed into a Polaroid still that is literally washed away.

"I Do Not Know What It Is that I Am Like" juxtaposes images of animals, both wild and domestic, and natural environments with human activity as it takes place in an apartment, and during a fire walking ceremony in Fiji. Documentary-style footage is combined with staged events. Despite the piece's lack of a traditional narrative, it bears some relationship to nature works. The segment features material from "Il Corpo Scuro (The dark body)" - animals and natural environments are seen up close and at a distance.

With a title referring to Japanese folklore, wherein things done on the first day of a new year are significant, the film - an ardent dream entirely shot in Japan - stands as a spiritual allegory equating light and dark with life and death.

Driven by a quest to capture a landscape reduced to flatness and sky, Viola travels to Chott El-Djerid. The film opens with images of snowy prairies and winter scenes, mirrored by warm, vibrating desert vistas. Through powerful telephoto lenses, shimmering mirages and warped forms emerge under extreme heat and light. These visuals evoke a space where dream and waking reality merge. Viola’s journey transcends documentation, transforming viewing into a reflective exploration of the limits of perception.

Migration is an analysis of an image, a metaphorical exercise in perception and representation, illusion and reality, microcosm and macrocosm, nature and consciousness.

"Reverse Television" was created in the mid-1980's by video artist Bill Viola. The 30-second portraits were about portraiture and the idea of a person staring at the viewer (as the viewer stares at the TV screen). Conceived of as a "micro-series," the work features 42 30-second portraits of television viewers in their living rooms. The portraits appear very formally composed, with attention paid to composition, lighting, and color. The viewers sit quietly, only occasionally making a slight shift in position. No external sound score has been added, so that the only sounds heard are sync sounds that have been heightened. These sounds include viewers' clothing when they move, swallowing, and background noises, such as traffic outside the viewer's home or a dog barking in the distance.

Viola's seminal piece, The Reflecting Pool, was made three decades ago on analogue video tape and yet could easily pass for a contemporary digital piece; in it, Viola emerges as central protagonist from a thick forest into a clearing filled by an artificial pool. As the noise of an aeroplane slowly passes and fades overhead, Viola approaches the edge of the pool, whereby he removes his shoes, squats down yelling and then prepares to make a powerful jump.

This haunting installment contains a solitary wood chair with headphones attached, facing a television monitor. A man (the artist himself), looking visibly fatigued, appears on the screen, sitting in his own chair. Here, the artist compels viewers into an intimate relationship: they sit at eye level with him, listening to the sound of his breathing through the headphones. —Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa.

The film is a five-part projection-based installation, which addresses the complexity of human existence through the themes of individuality, society, death and rebirth. Each video is projected directly onto the wall of the exhibition space, just as paint from a fresco adheres to the surface of a plaster wall.

Motivated by the love that bound him to Mathilda Wesendonck, Richard Wagner’s composition of Tristan und Isolde goes far beyond any simple operatic gesture. Peter Sellars’ production pours oil onto this troubled sea of emotions in an almost dematerialised setting bared of all earthly contingencies whilst Bill Viola presents the lovers’ initiatory quest for nirvana in videos detached from the stage, suspended like altarpieces.

A small crowd of people are gathered in wait when they are suddenly struck by a massive onslaught of water.

Anima, which means “soul” in Latin and is the root of the word animation, is from a series of works inspired by Renaissance paintings of figures against neutral backgrounds. The panels show three people who have been directed to express a series of emotions in a specific order—joy, sorrow, anger, and fear. Bill Viola shot the original footage of the complete emotional cycle in one minute; by slowing the speed of the video playback to 81 minutes and 30 seconds, he has made it nearly impossible to discern any movement, blurring the distinction between portraits made with still photography and those made with film. Through these portraits of three anonymous individuals, Viola both conveys the idea that time is eternal and addresses the notion of the changing self.

A four-hour plus video production inspired by Richard Wagner's oeuvre "Tristan und Isolde" and projected during the opera premiere in Paris, in partnership with Peter Sellars as artistic collaborator, and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.