Artist Bill Viola
Life through water
Never underestimate the sound of static. It’s incredibly eerie when played just by itself. This is the first impression of American artist Bill Viola’s video The Reflecting Pool. Released in 1979, the piece took two years to create and his been exhibited in numerous galleries around the world. Viola’s artworks are known for the integral themes of human life they portray. The Reflecting Pool is no different, centralizing on birth, baptism, time and memory.
The shadowy figure of a person picks their way through a dense forest, the greens of the foliage almost technicolour they’re so vibrant. A man-made pool, given an ancient feel from the grasses and ferns breaking through the cracked tiles, seductively shimmers and gurgles as the form draws closer. The man reaches the pool and stands on the edge, contemplating if he should jump in. The chirping of the insects and the rush of the plane overhead are combined with the noise of the pool, swelling to a crescendo as the man suddenly bunches his legs together as he jumps into the pool.
But he doesn’t jump into the pool like you’d expect. The sound of crashing and sloping water isn’t heard because the man remains suspended, fetus-like, over the water, where he remains for the majority of the video.
Dubbed as the frontrunner of a generation of artists who use electronic images and audio to convey the meaning of their works, Viola has been creating video tapes for the last 40 years. Heavily influenced by spirituality, which he discovered on his travels throughout Asia and Europe, he draws upon Zen Buddhism and mythical Christian practices. The sublime qualities of these religions are often apparent in his artworks, giving them a supernatural effect.
Born in 1951, he nearly drowned as a young boy after jumping off a raft. “I jumped in, plunged under, (the water) and within an instant I was in the completely magical world of colour,” he says to BBC radios John Tusa. “I was so fascinated and captivated and felt so comfortable…your emotions are a really big part of your consciousness” He goes on to describe how his uncle “rudely” yanked him out off the water. “It was an interruption and a terrible feeling, it was so disappointing” he told Tusa. It’s no surprise then that water is a constantly occurring motif in his works.
As the man hovers, the water below him gradually changes colour from light green to dark, while he remains motionless. It once again near freezes, producing a mirror image of its surroundings, yet it doesn’t reflect the airborne body. We experience the feeling of passing time as the colour of the pool continuously transforms. Circular waves, the kind that are created from dropping something into water, fan out inside the pool. They continuously reoccur as the man steadily begins to dissolve into the trees behind him. His body slowly wanes as a lit candle does, with pieces of him sliding off and being absolved in the water. The experience is almost slightly disturbing, but this is overridden by the unhurried pace, soothing the quietly observing audience. As he fades away, a blurred form materializes in the pool, walking towards the edge and out of sight. More people appear in the pool, but slowly fade like memories over a period of time.
The water transforms into a midnight black colour, with a circle of bright white light at its centre echoing the spiritual experience of dying. As the water returns to its original colour, a naked man climbs out, wandering back into the forest from which he first appeared. He has effectively been reborn, his life’s worth of experiences projected to the audience from the reflecting pool. Viola shows that a person cannot know their true self until it is reflected to them.The Reflecting Pool is both eerie and calm, an odd combination that disturbs and soothes your subconscious but you don’t necessarily understand how.
The official Bill Viola website – http://www.billviola.com/
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