ARTIST RESEARCH - Bill Viola 'Tristan's Ascension'

This Bill Voila piece specifically caught my eye as it is so powerful. The crescendo throughout is really captivating and increasingly builds up throughout the 5minuite duration. The piece is a short narrative with moving image included. The story is portrayed using a single person. This particular piece is a single screen.

The video is edited in a very clever way, allowing the tension to build up throughout creating a very slow suspense driven piece. The installation is filmed as a long shot, filmed with a single camera, with no jump cuts or editing techniques, due to the fact it simply doesn’t need it and is powerful enough without anything too fancy as it could have taken the attention away from the narrative and ruined the focal point. This piece has been exhibited as a duo before in Yorkshire sculpture park alongside a different piece of his called ‘fire woman’…

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/review-of-bill-viola-the-trial-at-yorkshire-sculpture-park/

It appears slow motion has been used in his piece to slow down movement during the man rising up out of shot. They have also used effects in order for him to appear as if he is actually rising and ‘ascending’ after death. It also appears a black and white filter has been added due to how dark the background is to ensure the visuals stand out their best to allow no distractions from what is going on. His works always has strong lighting effects to melodramatically express spiritual subject matter.

Bill viola tends to focus on the ideas behind ultimate human experiences such as birth, death and transfiguration for example. The title of the piece is ‘Tristan’s ascension’ similarly to the ascent of Christ into heaven after resurrection. My intake on the meaning behind this installation after watching it is that is a very spiritual piece and is designed to have impact on the audience. My idea on the piece is that the down falling waterfall is representing his death / the end of life and the up rise / ascend of the man is him rising above this to what some people believe is ‘heaven’ in which he then disappears out of shot and the waterfall continues to fall. Us as humans don’t know what happens after life and I think this could be a representation of that idea.

The diegetic sound used is very influential throughout this piece. The sound of the waterfall could possibly be an overlay sound or could have been amplified although you wouldn’t know because it goes with the imagery perfectly. The sound is so intense, After watching it with no sound and watching it with sound, there is a very big difference and you feel a lot more impact when watching it with the soundtrack. It adds to the build-up and goes hand in hand with the visuals creating intense impact until the installation is finished. When the piece is exhibited it is known as ‘Tristan’s ascension (the sound of a mountain under a waterfall)’ the distant sound of the waterfall slowly increasing works incredibly well as the soundtrack behind this piece and after visiting the contemporary ourselves, I can imagine when seeing this installation in person e.g... in a contemporary, it would be even more impactful to watch and take in.