Just One Memory: An Attempt at an Autobiography Without Narrative in the Work of Bill Viola

Andrzej Pitrus

kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)

Abstract

The work of Bill Viola, an artist working with moving image, that is not film, is classified as video art, video environments or media installations. In his work there are a lot of autobiographical motifs, although the artists never uses the structures of classic narration, and never tells us a story. Rather he builds and constructs additional meanings on top of a traumatic event from his childhood, when he nearly drowned. The event was both traumatic and fascinating, as during the drowning Viola had an incredible, visual ex- perience. In his work he returns to the drowning very often, but using different means and on different levels of conceptualization. Sometimes the scene from childhood returns in a literal sense, but more often as an attempt to find the “hidden dimension” of the event. An excellent example of working through the autobiographical element is the work entitled The Reflecting Pool, a work that has been accepted into the canon of new media arts. It is this work that forms the basis of Pitrus’ analysis in this article.


Keywords:

Bill Viola, autobiographism, video art

Biografistyka filmowa. Ekranowe interpretacje losów i faktów, red. T. Szczepański, S. Kołos, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2007, s. 9.
  Google Scholar

Boyle Deindre, Post-Traumatic Shock: Bill Viola's Recent Work, „Afterimage” 1996, nr 24 (Sept.–Oct. 1996), s. 10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.1996.24.2.9   Google Scholar

Brewińska Maria, Świadomość medium, w: Bill Viola, red. M. Brewińska, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warszawa 2007, s. 92.
  Google Scholar

Hendrykowski Marek, Biografizm jako dążenie kina współczesnego, w: Biografistyka filmowa. Ekranowe interpretacje losów i faktów, red. T. Szczepański, S. Kołos, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2007, s. 13.
  Google Scholar

Lubiak Jarosław, Zawieszenie uczuć, w: Bill Viola, red. M. Brewińska, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warszawa 2007, s. 111-112.
  Google Scholar

Pitrus Andrzej, „The Reflecting Pool“ Billa Violi – wymiary obrazu wideo, „Kwartalnik Filmowy“ 2008, nr 64, s. 94-102.
  Google Scholar

Walsh John, Emotions in extreme time: Bill Viola’s passion project, w: B. Viola, P. Sellars, J. Walsh, H. Belting, Bill Viola: The passions, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2003, s. 50.
  Google Scholar


Published
2011-03-31

Cited by

Pitrus, A. (2011) “Just One Memory: An Attempt at an Autobiography Without Narrative in the Work of Bill Viola”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (73), pp. 200–205. doi: 10.36744/kf.2997.

Authors

Andrzej Pitrus 
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland

Pracownik naukowy Instytutu Sztuk Audiowizualnych UJ. Autor książek Gore, seks, ciało, psychoanaliza (1992), Kino kultu (1998), Zrozumieć reklamę (1999), Znaki na sprzedaż (2000). Nam niebo pozwoli. O filmowej i telewizyjnej twórczości Todda Haynesa (2004), Filmowcy i kiniarze (2004), Dotykając lustra. Melodramaty Douglasa Sirka (2006). Znawca problematyki kina niezależnego.



Statistics

Abstract views: 87
PDF downloads: 12


License

Copyright (c) 2011 Andrzej Pitrus

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.


Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 > >>