"Heaven and Earth", 1992

In Bill Viola’s piece titled “Heaven and Earth” he again uses the video of his mothers death and a video of a child after birth, the same footage used in “Nantes Triptych”. He presents the same footage but completely changes the way it is perceived. The way in which this work is displayed plays a key role in the work as a whole. He suspends a monitor from a pillar attached to the ceiling. Another monitor is positioned facing up on a column attached to the floor. The two monitors face each other and are placed close enough to reflect their videos onto each other. His mother is mostly still and blank with her eyes half open in a lifeless gaze. The child is looking curiously into the new world in which it just entered.

These works are viewed without any other light source; the video is the only source of light thereby focusing the attention on it instead of the environment surrounding it. The image of his dying mother is reflected onto the image of a child who was just born. The focus of the piece is to show someone who is coming into the world reflected into someone leaving the world. Once again this piece deals the connection between all aspects of the world simultaneously.

Bill Viola emerged as a video artist along with many others but his body of work differs from all the others. He has worked in the medium for 30 years and he has been privileged with the most current technology because of his status. His recent works take more of a professional approach to film. They feature actors playing out emotional events whereas his earlier work let the viewer find emotion in the real and documented events that he captured. He uses a more controlled form of production involving costumes and sets and teams of people assisting an event to help it play out in a way that best expresses the ideas he’s trying to communicate.

bibliography: Bill Viola, Puhringer pg. 18. Bill Viola, The Eye of the Heart, DVD.