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Keywords
Video Artist Bill Violas work is often cited as spiritual, or influenced by Asian
thought. In order to delve more deeply into what spiritual might mean, this
article explores specific features of Violas work that directly relate to Buddhist
awareness practice.
Bill Viola
Buddhism
video art
spiritual art
awareness
slow motion
In a contemporary art world often marked by the flashy, the cynical, and the
ironic, Bill Violas video-based artwork offers a poignant alternative. Often
described as sublime, Violas work returns to a baroque style of floating,
spiritually enacting images, in stark opposition to more popular trends.1
I first studied Violas work at the Whitney Museums 25-year retrospective
(1997), followed by Five Angels for the Millennium (2001) also at the Whitney,
Going Forth By Day (2002) at the Guggenheim Museum, and Surrender
(2001), The Messenger (1996), and The Crossing (1996) at the Aros
Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark. The tension in Violas work between
the video medium and the still photograph or painting seems relevant as I
consider how video art stands between the photographic tradition and the
theatrical. Against a background of Violas Buddhist practice, it seems that
this tension between event and stasis, between movement and stillness,
reflects his concerns not only with the aesthetics of video art, but also with
a more didactic approach to art generally that the materiality of video
creates effects, and that those effects instruct by promoting certain responses.
In this article, I will explore some Buddhist readings of this work in the
context of contemporary art-criticism. I will look in particular at what I see
as two distinct types: pieces that stop the mind and pieces that encourage
viewers to see the mind.
Beyond the initial wonder of apprehending Violas work for the first
time, I was struck by what seemed a decidedly Buddhist point of view,
evident in his use of meditative theatrical space, repetitive imagery (which
seems to call up analogies to the breath in meditation), elements of shock
and surprise, and finally slow-motion extensions of time. These initial
perceptions were supported by a display of pages from Violas notebooks
that showed quotes from Buddhist sources. Violas influences are spelled
out further in his book, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: Writings
19731994, as well as in published interviews, including: The Light Enters
You in The Shambhala Sun, A Process of Perception: A Conversation with
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Bill Viola in Contemporary Theatre Review, and in books and show catalogues such as Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, Going Forth by Day, and
Bill Viola. In these interviews, Viola frequently tells stories of his studies
with his Zen Teacher, Sensei Daiju Tanaka, as well as his experiences in
Japan and during later journeys to India.
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phenomenon that mostly we just roll right over, as if the automobile of our
conceptual mind drives right over the red leaf. Here I am specifically undertaking this exploration of punctum based on Barthes initial definition rather
than his later exposition dealing with temporality and nostalgia. When we
stop following the narratives our minds spin out (and return to our direct
perceptions) we experience an opening onto a world in which detail and
attention open up. This is similar to the work of John Cage in his piece
433, in which a pianist formally enters a performance space, sits at and
opens the instrument, and proceeds to count 433 seconds of rests (in
three movements). The audience in this situation is already primed to listen
to a piece of music yet what is in fact heard is room tone coloured by the
chance sound events in the space and in the audiences minds during that
bracketed time. One way to understand the process of meditation practice
is as a way to notice when our thoughts stop to take a breath, leaving only
the total possibilities of room tone of our mind in this gap.
Like Cage, Bill Viola directly points at this phenomenon of stopping
the mind and opening awareness. The first piece I would like to discuss
in depth is He Weeps For You, a 1976 video and sound installation (see
Figure 1).
In a darkened space, a copper pipe runs down from the ceiling, terminating in a small brass valve, from which a single drop of water is slowly
emerging (see Figure 2). A live colour video camera, fitted with a special
lens attachment used for extreme close-up magnification, is focused on this
drop. The camera is connected to a video projector that displays the
swelling drop of water on a large screen at the rear of the space. The optical
properties of the waterdrop cause it to act like a wide-angle lens, revealing
an image of the room and those within it. The drop grows in size gradually,
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Yet even though this piece attempts to construct a specific experience for
the viewer, the symbolic aspects of the work (referred to above by Wagner)
serve to provide more of what Barthes might call the studium, the alreadycoded. For Barthes, the studium is the . . . application to a thing, taste
for someone, a kind of enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without
special acuity (Ibid, p. 26). Here Viola invokes a Christian context in the title,
and expands its significance as the weeping water drop can also be read
as the process of coming to enlightenment, the gift of awareness, the possibility of unifying ones mind with the worlds mind-stream. Such double
coding of Christian iconography and Buddhist practice seems to be a feature
of Violas work overall. One could also say that Viola is concerned with the
interaction between the punctum as an immediate response, and the highly
coded symbolism, both western and eastern of the studium. Punctum contains a crucial sudden aspect as opposed to being the reasoned response,
conditioned in habit and expectation, to a given image. The punctum is
involuntary and contingent on the viewer. Barthes presents studium as an
always-coded binary, inhibiting direct experience, in opposition to punctum,
which interrupts the coded stream of consciousness. So the binary between
the studium and punctum parallels the discursiveness of conceptual mind
and the interruption of a moment of attention. Likewise, Buddhism is interested in underscoring the direct experience of our phenomenal world, in
opposition to the linguistic filter that is the nature of our mental constructs.
We experience this discursive overlay tree for example instead of actually experiencing the specific instance of a tree before us. This linguistic
term transforms what is actually perceived into a symbol. The reading of
this symbol is a different process than the shock of response entailed in
bringing the mind to awareness.
Violas use of shock is interesting to consider alongside so-called
shock-artists such as photographer Andres Serrano. In Serranos works,
such as the notorious Piss-Christ, large-scale and beautiful Cibachrome
prints of intentionally disturbing subjects are portrayed. His major series
includes formal portraits of Klu Klux Klan leaders, unidentified suicides
from morgues, a series of bodily fluids, and so on. His work consistently
absorbs the viewer with stunning virtuosic imagery and technique, but
shocks the viewer as what is actually being seen becomes clear. This
process of revelation is related to, but different from, what Viola does with
the streaming medium of video. In Piss-Christ, Serrano uses urine to
achieve a specific colour as well as to provoke a specific response. One
could compare this technique to the way Viola uses immensely appealing
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imagery that shocks over time, first evoking a specific mood or trajectory,
and then revealing what seems to be a break or ending which awakens the
senses. Violas shock is different, however, as the sensorial surprise seemingly pops the bubble of our conceptual density, leaving us with a sense of
space or what Buddhists call bare presence or satori. In my view, Serrano
uses shock to intentionally leave us in a confused and disturbed conceptual
muddle, trying to parse the incongruous union of beauty and profoundly
disturbing content. Although I do not object to the validity of Serranos juxtaposition, and frankly appreciate his choices as an artist, Serranos
repeated use of this device becomes less interesting in practice. Viola uses
shock, a sudden sensory stimulus, to stop the chatter in our minds whereas
Serrano uses shock, a sudden distressing change of conceptual perspective, to enhance our discordant sense of conceptual propriety in the world.
In his published notebooks, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House, as
well as in descriptions and interviews published in show catalogues, Viola
repeatedly indicates his intention to bring his audience to awareness and
evoke something of a spiritual response. The always-moving medium of
video finds its analogy in the stream of thoughts of the mind, and Violas
methods of extending time or compressing events seems to create an almost
still frame from within the movement. The tension, therefore, between the
moving and the stopped, the continual flow and the transcendent, reverberates between Violas chosen medium (created to foster the aims of a high
speed meditated culture) and his subversion of these very tools in the content
and method of his creative work. Any one layer of symbolism, stands, for me,
secondary to the intention of stopping an audience members mind from
making too much out of any other layer of meaning or narrative.
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Ascending Angel, and Creation Angel. All five videos involve a man clad in
white diving into or crashing up out ofin slow motion, forwards or backwardslit ocean depths, jewel-like gobs of water, or streaming bubbles. In
Departing Angel, for instance, the man floats, stretched out horizontally,
and then he tilts and accelerates up into boiling turbulence, where he suddenly disappears. For Fire Angel the water is illuminated a cloudy red. A
long, shimmering mote or passageway down through the water gradually
forms, and as the water begins to churn and froth, it seems to cleave, and the
man, arms outstretched, blasts upward and mysteriously evaporates on the
surface. And in Ascending Angel, the man shatters through the surface and
hovers, arms extended like wings, shedding water.
In his article, Chris Townsend (2004) specifically comments on the phenomenon of the audiences interaction with the Viola piece Five Angels for
the Millennium in a 2001 gallery exhibition in London:
I would attest that people were often sitting three or four deep in front of
some screens, and that many of them appeared to have come to spend a considerable amount of time in the exhibition. That is, the duration of their attention to the work at least reflected the duration of those works: they had not
come for a quick glance at an image.
Townsend further reports that gallery owner Anthony dOffay said people
came and brought lunch, sitting all day in front of the installations. What
were they watching? I would posit that ultimately they were watching their
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own minds. Although one might also wonder about the performance of the
social scene created by such an event, I would argue that due to the silent
and still environment, and the sense that viewers were also watching others
watch, visiting the exhibit took on a tone similar to going to group meditation. The participation in the viewing of the work thus becomes an event in
itself and underscores the present moment of it as a happening.
One might recall the use of a similar time-quality in the post-modern
Japanese dance form Butoh, where often one of the identifying descriptors
is the slowness of the dancers movement. Of course this stylised movement
practice is in relationship to traditional theatrical Japanese court forms,
including Noh, Kabuki, and the formal court dance Gagaku. Yet all of these
forms have a relationship to Zen meditation practice. In a 2004 interview
with Caridad Svich, Viola explicitly mentions that he spent a significant
period of time studying Japanese theatre. Other Japanese forms of physical
practice that include a slow tempo as one of their hallmarks are Chado (tea
ceremony) and kyudo (archery practice). In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition,
practices such as these are called post-meditation techniques, encouraging
the practitioner to bring the mindfulness and awareness developed in sitting
meditation into a transitional space between the meditation cushion and
ones ordinary life. Practices such as these allow one to practice acting
while simultaneously being fully in the present moment, as opposed to
simply wrapped up in discursive thoughts. Interestingly, all of these practices
have a component of witnessing, or watching them as a performance. The
audience, while not having the body-mind experience of the actual practice
itself, participate in a state of suspended or at least slowed animation.
This sense of slowed time allows the mind to relax and experience a more
reflective container. Like taking a long drive, or standing in the shower, these
slowed performances create a space that encourages, provokes, and triggers
a greater sense of awareness. Indeed this awareness may simply be of the
coming and going of our attentiveness to the performance at hand. This
echoes the process of returning to the meditation object cultivated by formal
sitting meditation practice. In this way, the slow time space of Violas work
mirrors to us our minds coming and going, so we notice when we are
present and when our thoughts have drifted elsewhere.
The aspect of Violas work that is manifest in public space functions as
a bridge between the inner meditative experience and the publicly mediated
aspect of theatre. In other words, Viola creates a theatre that is in relation
to sacred space: the church, mosque, temple or zendo. The relationship of
the audience to the unknowable and absorptive experience of the actor
heightens the overtly theatrical and immersive atmosphere. In her book
Disappearing Acts, Diana Taylor (1997) links theatricality to a predetermined
structure and states that thus it is citational. What then is Viola citing in
these slow and abstracted pieces? What is the predetermined structure? I
would suggest it is Violas own experience with formal sitting meditation
and the feeling one gets in those time-transforming environments. Thus his
installations place the viewer in a citational space, full of prior articulations
and/or expectations, even as it is simultaneously meditative. The viewer of
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his works most often enter a room so darkened that even seeing ones own
body is impossible. There one is confronted with a larger-than-life image of
a human figure experiencing a violent, cathartic or mortal event, slowed
completely. Lisa Jaye Young (1997: 6571) provides us with a useful description of this spatial quality. The creation of this space, a cross between
painting gallery and movie theatre, provides the viewer with a rare, unobstructive, and meditative setting for the public viewing of art.
As opposed to television and the movies (even art films) the narrative
structures in Violas works are presented entirely in physical gesture and
imagery, supported by a carefully constructed sound environment. This lack
of any verbal or psychological overlay that would tell us about the actors
interior experience creates an unknowable centre to the work that enforces
a reflective interior/exterior split for the viewer. This confrontation with the
unknowable puts us into a space beyond concept and the slowed passage of
time confronts us with an awareness of our thinking, searching, and finally
resting, mind. Interestingly, the installations do not represent realistic
embodied states (realistic portrayals of being burned or drowned for
example) and the cataclysms as events are more ritual, almost metaphysical.
Yet Viola persists in using slowed and abstracted bodies as sources of
meaning, narrative, symbol and reflection. Virginie Magnet states in her essay
in The Art of Bill Viola, Theatricality from a Performance Perspective that:
Theatricality is primarily grounded in a quality of presence and perception and
thus it is a process in which the consciousness of the performer and the consciousness of the spectator become tangibly connected through an embodied
awareness of one another.
(p. 153)
In Violas works the performer is never and always present. There is no historical embodiment in the sense of specific actors in specific relationship
to cause, time, history, culture rather, the visual referent of a universalized body undergoes an experience in time, and against a background of
darkness, or woods, or mythological space. With the lack of any explicit
consciousness telegraphed to the viewer by the actor, presence and perception are diverted back onto a viewer who must confront the limits of her
ability to know or read anothers experience. The dark room filled with
others helps underscore this reflectivity because of the social taboos
against talking in a theatrical or art space, and the constant proximity to the
heat and breathing of the other spectators stumbling as their eyes also
adjust. Lisa Jaye Young points further to Violas harnessing of our cultural
training in screenal consumption:
Viola has taken complete advantage of the screens ability to induce a sort of
TV glaze, or optic stare. He has subtly exploited this usually negative characteristic of the screen and turned it to his advantage, in that the moving image
easily becomes a natural meditative point of focus, holding the contemporary
viewers attention like few canvasses do. He creates a kind of filmic painting
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which gives birth to a new sense of duration, provoking the attention span
and challenging our learned patterns of automatic montage. In this way he
induces a hypnotic symbiosis between image and viewer.
(p. 70)
Conclusion
Ultimately Bill Violas art is an art of subtle experience. His marriage of spiritual ideas with the sophisticated tools of the high-speed engine of popular
culture enables him to critique and alter our conventional experience. Viola
creates meditative experiences through the use of devices most often used
to obliterate direct perception. The result is an art of practice, similar to the
meditation techniques of shamata and vipassana, which reflects us back to
ourselves and leaves us embodied, aware, and at peace. Viola intentionally
and skillfully uses visual ideas to create a liminal space that subtly points
out the mind to viewers, while simultaneously laying out a mixed set of
symbolisms and spiritual traditions. In the end, I dont feel manipulated by
Violas sophisticated use of the tools of mass media, but rather I am left in
a reverberant, resonant space provoked by a heartfelt and skillful expression
of genuineness and an authentic attempt to express beauty.
References
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Baird, D. (2005), The Spiritual in Art, The Brooklyn Rail: Critical perspectives on Arts,
Politics, and Culture, . Brooklyn, NY: The Brooklyn Rail, p. 12.
Barthes, R. (1981), Camera Lucida (trans. R. Howard), New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux.
Boyle, D. (1996), Post-Traumatic Shock: Bill Violas Recent Work, Afterimage, 24: 2.
Cork, R. (2003), Past Martyrs, The New Statesman, 3 November, pp. 4344.
Douglas, S. (2005), The ArtInfo Interview: Bill Viola, 16 December, http://www.
artinfo.com/News/Article.aspx?a=1484.
Gardner, J. (1998), Is It Art, National Review, 4 May, pp. 5859.
Ginell, R.S. (2005), The Tristan Project, American Record Guide, 68: 2, Mar/Apr 2005,
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30: 3, Spring, pp. 584626.
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Keith, C. (1998), Image After Image: The Video Art of Bill Viola, PAJ: A Journal of
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King, M. (2005), Art and the Postsecular, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 4: 1, pp. 317.
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lomax/viola.htm., Accessed 16 November 2005.
McLeod, M. (2004), The Light Enters You, Shambhala Sun (Nova Scotia) Nov. 2004,
pp. 3236.
Maksymowicz, V. (1998), Artist Violas World Infused with Devine, National Catholic
Reporter, 24 April, p. 14.
Murray, T. (2002), Digital Baroque: Via Viola or the Passage of Theatricality,
Substance 98/99: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, 31: 2 & 3, pp. 265277.
Packwood, D. (2004), Saving Postmodernisms Soul: Bill Violas The Passions, The
Art Book, 11: 4, September, pp. 810.
Plagens, P. (1995), The Video Vibes of Venice, Newsweek, 17 July, 126: 3, pp. 59.
Reed, A. (2005), The Tristan Project, Art in America, Apr, 93: 4, pp. 4343.
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Svich, C. (2004), A Process of Perception: A Conversation with Bill Viola,
Contemporary Theatre Review, 14: 2, pp. 7281.
Taylor, D. (1997), Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in
Argentinas Dirty War, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Townsend, C. (ed.) (2004), The Art of Bill Viola, London: Thames & Hudson.
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Suggested citation
Jewett, J. (2008), Seeing the mind, stopping the mind, the art of Bill Viola,
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 4: 1, pp. 8194, doi:
10.1386/padm.4.1.81/1
Contributor details
Choreographer and multimedia artist Jamie Jewett is the artistic director of Lostwax
(www.lostwax.org). He has created numerous multimedia performances exploring
the use of site-specific video, interactivity, and the real-time manipulation of media
sources in a dance idiom based on release technique. Jewett is currently a doctoral
candidate at Brown University in New Media and Performance. Contact: Jamie
Jewett, Ph.D. Candidate (2008), Brown University Special Studies, Box 1924, Orwig
Music Building, 1 Young Orchard Avenue, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
E-mail: Jewett18@yahoo.com
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