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Bill Viola

Bill Viola Quotes

Video Artist

Bill Viola, born on January 25, 1951, is a renowned video artist known for his exploration of human emotions and life experiences. His works blend traditional art with modern technology, making a profound impact on the contemporary art world.

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All Art Thinking World Humans Age Artist Ends Used Video Art Is

Famous Bill Viola Quotes

“There's another world out there just beyond the world we're in. It's just on the other side of that translucent, semitransparent surface.”

World Sides Surface Another World

Author:Bill Viola

“I like to keep the meanings in my work flowing and open.”

Author:Bill Viola

“Video artists being at the low end of the totem pole economically, one of the ways we survive is to go around showing work and giving these talks.”

Way Giving Ends Artist Lows Video Totems

Author:Bill Viola

“I think we're in an age where artists really have an incredible range of materials at their command now. They can use almost anything from household items - Jackson Pollock used house paint - to, you know, advanced computer systems, to good old oil paint and acrylic paint.”

Thinking Knows Use Age Used Artist House Materials Computer Paint Incredibles Oil Command Range Household Items Computer Systems Pollock

Author:Bill Viola

“Revolution is something that actually starts in individual hearts.”

Heart Individual Revolution

Author:Bill Viola

“In the mid- to late '60s to the mid-'70s, when I was a student, there was a major change in the thinking about what art can be and how art is made.”

Thinking Art Made Students Late Majors Art Is Major Change

Author:Bill Viola

“I came of age at the end of the 1960s, just when video was also coming into the world. Companies such as Sony and Panasonic were starting to market it and we artists immediately knew how it could be used.”

World Ends Age Used Artist Company Starting Video 1960s Sony

Author:Bill Viola

“Emotions are the key to many aspects of life. They are precisely the elements that make human beings human. I think the fact that emotions have been reduced and put off to the side in intellectual work, particularly in the 20th Century, is tragic.”

Thinking Humans Has Beens Facts Sides Human Beings Emotion Century Keys Elements Intellectual Aspect Tragic Being Human 20th Century Aspects Of Life

Author:Bill Viola

“The fundamental aspect of video is not the image, even though you can stand in amazement at what can be done electronically, how images can be manipulated and the really extraordinary creative possibilities. For me the essential basis of video is the movement - something that exists at the moment and changes in the next moment.”

Done Moments Next Creative Movement Possibility Essentials Aspect Bases Fundamentals Extraordinary Video Amazement

Author:Bill Viola

“You are just as qualified as any expert to make a judgment and have a feeling or a response to any work of art.”

Art Feelings Judgment Response Experts Works Of Art Qualified

Author:Bill Viola

“A lot of what making art is, is just being open, and empty. And putting yourself in the right place for things to, literally, come together.”

Art Together Art Is Empty Just Being Right Place

Author:Bill Viola

“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.”

Ifs Trying Running Cry Doctors Knives Scream

Author:Bill Viola

“Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.”

World Soul Fast Paced

Author:Bill Viola

“My works really begin in a very simple way. Sometimes it's an image, and sometimes it's words I might write, like a fragment of a poem.”

Way Writing Sometimes Might Simple Fragments Simple Ways

Author:Bill Viola

“When I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional - a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful.”

Want Art Purpose Individual Space Reflection Contemplation

Author:Bill Viola

“The human brain is probably one of the most complex single objects on the face of the earth; I think it is, quite honestly.”

Thinking Humans Earth Faces Brain Objects Complexes Honestly Human Brain

Author:Bill Viola

“I spend a lot of time writing. I get inspiration from texts rather than images.”

Writing Inspiration

Author:Bill Viola

“Vision connects you. But it also separates you. In my work, and my life, I feel a desire to merge. Not in terms of losing my own identity... but theres a feeling that life is interconnected, that theres life in stones and rocks and trees and dirt, like there is in us.”

Feels Feelings Life Is Desire Term My Own Vision Tree Rocks Identity Losing Stones Dirt Interconnected

Author:Bill Viola

“I would prefer to be forgotten, then rediscovered in a different age.”

Different Age Forgotten Different Ages

Author:Bill Viola

“I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.”

Thinking Believe Art Action Earth Inspire Don't Believe Deeds Who We Are Originality Our Actions Borrowing

Author:Bill Viola

“The electronic image is not fixed to any material base and, like our DNA, it has become a code that can circulate to any container that will hold it, defying death as it travels at the speed of light.”

Light Materials Speed Code Fixed Dna Containers Speed Of Light Defying

Author:Bill Viola

“I hope we'll be able to see that in our lifetime: the end of the camera! When I'm in Paris, I'll buy a big bottle of champagne and I'll save it for that day, for the day when they'll be no more camera.”

Ends Bigs Able Cameras Lifetime Paris Bottles Champagne

Author:Bill Viola

“It only takes a second for an impression to become a vision.”

Vision Impression

Author:Bill Viola

“Fifty years from now I don't think optical realism is going to be an issue in visual communication any more. Experience is so much richer than light falling on your retina. You embody a microcosm of reality when you walk down the street - your memories, your varying degrees of awareness of what's going on around you, everything we could call the contextualizing information. Representing that information is going to be the main issue in the years ahead - how the world meets the mind, not the eye.”

Thinking World Years Mind Reality Light Eye Fall Memories Walks Issues Streets Awareness Information Communication Degrees Visuals Fifty Realism Our Memories Representing Microcosm

Author:Bill Viola

“Human beings have always been creative. The guys who were making the pyramids, and archaeological research has showed us this, had little figurines made by the workers, to express their devotion to their god.”

Humans Littles Made Guy Human Beings Creative Research Workers Devotion Pyramids

Author:Bill Viola

“Art has always had as its test in the long term the ability to speak to our innermost selves.”

Long Art Self Speak Term Ability Tests Long Term Serendipity Ability To Speak

Author:Bill Viola

“People have experiences in art museums today that they used to have in church.”

People Art Today Used Spirit Church Museums

Author:Bill Viola

“For the Persian poet Rumi, each human life is analogous to a bowl floating on the surface of an infinite ocean. As it moves along, it is slowly filling with the water around it. That's a metaphor for the acquisition of knowledge. When the water in the bowl finally reaches the same level as the water outside, there is no longer any need for the container, and it drops away as the inner water merges with the outside water. We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves.”

Needs Humans Moments Moving Life Is Water Levels Poet Return Ocean Infinite Metaphor Surface Human Life Bowls Floating Filling Acquisition Analogies Persian Containers Return To Me

Author:Bill Viola

“Live your Art. Don't think about it.”

Author:Bill Viola

“Since the time of St. Jerome, it was mandatory for any kind of scholar or thinker to spend time out in the desert in solitude. It's no coincidence that the desert has been a major part of the visionary or mystical experience from the beginning of time.”

Kind Has Beens Wisdom Solitude Majors Desert Thinker Scholar Coincidence Mystical End Times Spend Time Visionaries Feeling Lonely Mystical Experiences

Author:Bill Viola

“There is an invisible world out there, and we are living in it.”

World Invisible

Author:Bill Viola

About the Author

Born: January 25, 1951
Known for: Video Artist
Quotes: 31

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