Bill Viola is an artist of today that has aided in the establishment, "...of video as contemporary art..."
This is a look at a piece of the video of The Crossing. As you can see, in one frame he is being consumed by fire and in the other he is being pounded down by water until in both frames, he is completely disintegrated and incinerated.
This is the video of him performing The Crossing. Some of his videos tell biblical stories in their meanings without Viola having to say anything about them having that meaning at all.
This a frame from another of his works called The Passing. This video seems to be commenting on the cycle of life. Birth, life, death, and all of the events in between are being depicted here in this video by Viola. He made this video in the midst of his mother's death and his son's birth, which may have had something to do with the meaning of the video.
This link is to the video entitled Reflecting Pool where a man happens upon what looks like a pool of water and, after observing it for several seconds, attempts to jump in when his body seems to be frozen in midair. His frozen body then begins to drip into the pool he is hovering above before his figure starts to disappear into the scenery behind him. As his body fades, what looks like the reflection of his figure appears in the water, and walks away. As his body is still disintegrating, his body appears again to be crawling out of the pool of water and walks back into the forest behind him.
This is a picture from his work entitled The Lovers. In this video, you see two people, a man and woman who seem to be lovers. There starts to be water gushing towards them from the side that the man is standing on. Throughout the video, he is trying his best to shield the woman with him from the rage of the waters being hurled at them. They struggle and struggle to keep from falling down from the force of the water as he continues to hold her close trying to brace her against himself to keep her from falling and being swept away by the water.
Acceptance made by Viola around 2008 shows a woman coming into the light somewhat out of focus. As she continues to walk forward, water begins to be poured onto her from above. This moment of the video, to me, symbolizes the hardships one faces in life with finding themselves and accepting themselves. Symbolically walking through life beginning out of focus, not really knowing who you are to being in focus as the woman in the video is at the end, and figuring out who you really are and what your meaninfg is here.
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