Bill Viola
He
is globally known as one of today’s leading video artists. In many of his
videos he uses a form on contemporary art. This has expanded the knowledge of
video art and the different forms of technology uses within. For 40 years he
has produced many videotapes, electronic music performances, video
installations and many more. His work focuses on universal human experiences. His work connect to a wide audience, allowing
viewers to experience his work directly in their own particular way.
Bill Viola combines filmed images and a soundtrack (music)
which he calls “total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound.”
With origins of both the western and eastern worlds art and the spiritual
beliefs. He pursues timeless video installations which are based on his popular
themes for example: birth and death and the extremes of emotions. A good
example which includes these themes would be Quintet of the Astonished (part of the “Quintet” series, 2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR9av-I35ME It’s soundless therefore allowing the
audience to have their own thoughts about what’s going on without having a
narrator/voice over to explain what is going on within the video. As displayed
in the video each persona is expressing an emotion. Which leaves viewers to
wonder why they may be reacting like this and leave you on the edge of your
seat.
Bill Viola: The dreamers
This is the exact video that made me want to study Bill
Viola and have a better understanding in his work. The video itself is
different compared to other video artist for example, Bruce Nauman, he often
combines different styles together to complete a final presentation (performing
arts, conceptualism, video art Minimalism).
Marcel Duchamp influenced Nauman in the 1960s in a variety
of ways from encouraging his love of wordplay to filling his work with an
ironic and sometimes absurdist one. Many of Naumans work echoes on disappearance of the old
modernist belief in the ability of the artist to express his ideas clearly and
powerfully. Many of Naumans work included comedy and wordplay (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDDoo1zkn0M
). Bill Violas waterfall video is a
reflective feeling which gives the viewer a different feeling whilst watching
it. It’s different in a way that it brings you to the edge of your seat leaving
you to wonder what was his aim, what’s going on and how was it made. It’s an
overwhelming use of art with sound and moving images combined that distress
your mind in a way love or mourning can. It’s disturbingly magnificent as some
of the moving images may display as the person being deceased and drowning.
Video art is a medium that has been founded to view videos
in a different perspective that has been seen as weird due to the fact it is
different and many people don’t tend to understand the meaning or purpose. Its
old-fashion and the technology often dismisses what humans count as true. He
describes the technology used as what he needs to express what he is
portraying.
Some of Naumans work was created in the 1960s. In his videos
he would often do repetitive tasks that were in sync with himself and objects
surrounding him. It showed the relationship between the viewer and the
sculptural object. His interest often contains the concerns of the betrayal of
gravity. His Self Portrait as a Fountain (1966) shows the artist
spouting a stream of water from his mouth. At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began
constructing claustrophobic and enclosed corridors and rooms that could be
entered by visitors and which evoked the experience of being locked in and of
being abandoned. A series of works inspired by one of the artist's dreams was
brought together under the title of Dream Passage and created in 1983, 1984,
and 1988. In his installation Changing Light Corridor with Rooms (1971), a long
corridor is shrouded in darkness, whilst two rooms on either side are
illuminated by bulbs that are timed to flash at different rates.
Since the mid-1980s,
primarily working with sculpture and video, Nauman developed disturbing
psychological and physical themes incorporating images of animal and human body
parts, depicting sadistic allusions to games and torture together with themes
of surveillance. In 1988, after a hiatus of nearly two decades focused on
time-based media, he resumed his work with cast objects.
Marcel Duchamp
Although his father was a lawyer the family had many
artistic features stemming from his grandfather. Four of his six children also
became artist. Once he had arrived in Paris in the year 1904 he had already
completed a few paintig which showed his interest styles and techniques. He
passed through main contemporary trends
in painting that was influenced by Paul Cezanne, Fauvism and Cubism. He was
simply experimenting therefore coming to an understanding that being different
was better than being the same as everyone else. He was outside the most common
traditional artistic features other artist were commonly doing the same work. Duchamp's
early art works align with Post-Impressionist styles. He experimented with
classical techniques and subjects. When he was later asked about what had
influenced him at the time, Duchamp cited the work of Symbolist painter Odilon
Redon, whose approach to art was not outwardly anti-academic, but quietly
individual. He studied art at the Académie Julian from 1904 to 1905, but
preferred playing billiards to attending classes. During this time Duchamp drew
and sold cartoons which reflected his ribald humor. Many of the drawings use
verbal puns (sometimes spanning multiple languages), visual puns, or both. Such
play with words and symbols engaged his imagination for the rest of his life.
In 1905, he began his
compulsory military service with the 39th Infantry Regiment, working for a
printer in Rouen. There he learned typography and printing processes—skills he
would use in his later work.
Due to his eldest
brother Jacques' membership in the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et
de sculpture Duchamp's work was exhibited in the 1908 Salon d'Automne, and the
following year in the Salon des Indépendants. Fauves and Paul Cézanne's
proto-Cubism influenced his paintings, although the critic Guillaume
Apollinaire—who was eventually to become a friend—criticized what he called
"Duchamp's very ugly nudes" there.[citation needed] Duchamp also
became lifelong friends with exuberant artist Francis Picabia after meeting him
at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, and Picabia proceeded to introduce him to a
lifestyle of fast cars and "high" living.
In 1911, at Jacques'
home in Puteaux, the brothers hosted a regular discussion group with Cubist
artists including Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Roger de La
Fresnaye, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris, and Alexander Archipenko.
Poets and writers also participated. The group came to be known as the Puteaux
Group, or the Section d'Or. Uninterested in the Cubists' seriousness, or in
their focus on visual matters, Duchamp did not join in discussions of Cubist
theory, and gained a reputation of being shy. However, that same year he
painted in a Cubist style, and added an impression of motion by using
repetitive imagery.
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