Video Art with Bill Viola

Bill Viola is by far one of the most important and vital artists in the 21^st century. He is a video artist, taking a contemporary approach to all of his creations. Viola is honorable in that he bases so much of his work on either birth, death, or the human consciousness. I can be honest in saying that researching him, I never was drawn to boredom. Although his work may seem a bit over the top with spirituality, that is exactly his method and what he is pushing for. Viola believes we live in a visual society and that images are our global language. Some of his work is incredibly beautiful, some of it is rather odd. Nevertheless, all of his work is inspirational, thriving with his visions, ideas, and what he feels is important for society to understand. I created a brief slideshow to show some examples of Bill Viola’s work and his concepts. I included some of his works that impacted millions of people, such as “The Raft”, as well as some work that many have possibly never heard of, like “Four Hands”.  

In so much of his work, Viola seems to have a strong obsession with water in his films.  In the slide show I chose to show “The Raft”, “Ocean’s Without a Shore”, and “Two Women”, all near each other to show his infatuation with water. Here is a brief example of  “Ocean’s Without a Shore”.  



 Recently, I had discussed how the medium is the message. Bill Viola responded in a interview with ,“Any time there’s a new development in the medium there are new creative possibilities”. I completely agree, and you can clearly see Viola expresses this through his work.