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We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves.

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.
BILL VIOLA

Creative Devotion Express Guy Pyramids
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.
BILL VIOLA

Art Change Students Thinking
I spend a lot of time writing. I get inspiration from texts rather than images.
BILL VIOLA

Images Inspiration Writing
It only takes a second for an impression to become a vision.
BILL VIOLA

Impression Second Vision
Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.
BILL VIOLA

Fast Paced Soul World
I would prefer to be forgotten, then rediscovered in a different age.
BILL VIOLA

Age Different Forgotten
Revolution is something that actually starts in individual hearts.
BILL VIOLA

Heart Individual Revolution
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.
BILL VIOLA

Age Artist Coming Panasonic Video Year
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.
BILL VIOLA

Embody Everything Experience Memories Microsm Retina
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.
BILL VIOLA

Art Hope Reflection Something Space
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.
BILL VIOLA

Experiences Mystical Solitude Wisdom
We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves.
BILL VIOLA

Call Death Metaphor Moment Ourselves
I like to keep the meanings in my work flowing and open.
BILL VIOLA

Flowing Keep Meaning Open
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.
BILL VIOLA

Container Outside Water Merge
The human brain is probably one of the most complex single objects on the face of the earth; I think it is, quite honestly.
BILL VIOLA

Brain Earth Honestly Thinking
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.
BILL VIOLA

Fragment might Simple Writing

We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves.

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We call this the moment of death. That analogy returns to me over and over as a metaphor for ourselves.

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Popular Authors

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