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July 27, 2005
Tracks of his tears: crying with Bill Viola
Video artist Bill Viola tells Joyce Morgan of The Age about art, tears and the mystic: "The near darkness of the editing suite draws close as video artist Bill Viola speaks in calm, measured tones... "I cry a lot... Usually once a day. I think it's one of the most profound forms of human expression." The insulated room that absorbs all echoes suddenly feels more like a confessional than a high-tech post-production centre in the heart of... Hollywood. "A doctor once told me that with crying you aren't sure what its derivation is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you don't cry: you scream, you try to run. When it's over and you're OK, that's when you cry." ... Viola is a thoroughly modern mystic, who uses digital technology to create images that invite the contemplation of life and death. His small plasma screens pay homage to the portable religious icons of the Middle Ages.. As Gandhi once said, there's more to life than increasing its speed... The slowness of Viola's work also has a political dimension. It is an antidote to what he sees as one of the greatest dangers of our age - the speed with which we receive information and our growing inability to makes sense of what we see."
Posted by at July 27, 2005 04:05 AM
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