"Four songs" of Bill Viola - experimental video songs. Cover Image

"Four songs" Billa Violi - eksperymentalne pieśni wideo.
"Four songs" of Bill Viola - experimental video songs.

Author(s): Andrzej Pitrus
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Viola Bill

Summary/Abstract: The author focuses on the work of Bill Viola from the period of 1970s, when his work was experimental and clearly in the avant-garde, and the young artist was busy exploring various possibilities offered by media. The article deals with the 1976 tape "Four Songs", which from the researcher’s point of view shows an overlap of performance art and exploration of the media, through manipulations of video material, and its transformation at the level of signal. The analysis of more video excerpts from the cycle of "Four Songs", leads Pitrus to conclude that Viola’s experiments dealing with technology and the character of the medium paradoxically have a deeper meaning. The work of Bill Viola not only brings a coherent vision of the video as a medium, but also contains a vision of the world. In this sense his experimental work from the 1970s constitute a preparation for his artistic expression in the following two decades, which express this vision in even greater depth.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 82
  • Page Range: 193-200
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Polish