Working With Bill Viola
In 2000, Bill Viola and his wife Kira Perov came to see a play that I was performing in-- "The Akhmatova Project." Kira was of Russian heritage and she had heard good things about the production, so they made the drive up from Long Beach to see it. A short time later, I got a call from Bills' studio, asking whether I would be interested in auditioning for a series of new works that Bill was about to embark on. Of course I said yes, and after I hung up the phone I had to quickly find out just who this "Bill Viola" character was, and what I had just agreed to do. I called my friend Nancy Keystone, who knew about art and artists, and her quick inhalation of breath on the other end of the line clued me in right away that Bill Viola was someone I should know, unworthy heathen that I was.
So I made the pilgrimage to Long Beach and met with Bill in his studio. The audition was quite simple: I sat in a chair and listened as Bill read a rather beautiful poem to me about the things a woman sacrifices when she welcomes a child into her life. My job was to let the words of the poem wash over me, and to let the emotions play over my face without pushing or forcing anything. The poem was so beautiful and pertinent to my life, and Bill's voice was so soft and sincere that I had no trouble feeling any number of things, which washed over my face for a good long time. After a while I wondered whether I should stop, but he sat there so attentively watching me that I figured he needed to see more, so I kept up with the washing. Finally he very gently asked if I was through. It turned out that he had had so little experience with actors at that point that he didn't know that he was supposed to say "cut" or "thank you" or "that's great." We laughed when we realized that we were each waiting for the cue from the other to stop, both feeling rather sheepish for how long we had allowed it to go on. And so began my joyful experience with Bill Viola.
Working with Bill is an un-looked-for gift for which I am profoundly grateful. Each piece I've appeared in over the past 14 years has had its own challenging emotional terrain to navigate, but at the center of each one has been Bill's calm, intelligent, soulful, searching presence. He is a man who synthesizes everything he sees, touches, feels, hears, reads and experiences into art. I'm so honored to have been included in his work, and to have been given the task of allowing the emotions to wash over my face in search of the truth of human existence.
Selected Works
BILL VIOLA
Chapel of Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures, 2013
(Composite image)
Video/Sound Installation
Nine channels of color High-Definition video on a 3 x 3 grid of plasma displays; nine channels mono sound
183 x 306 x 9 cm (35 x 120 ½ x 3 ½ in)
Performers: Tomas Arceo, John Brunold, Cathy Chang, John Fleck, Joanne Lindquist, Tim Ottman, Kira Perov, Valerie Spencer, Ivan Villa, Bill Viola, Blake Viola
Continuous running
Photo: Kira Perov
This is the most recent of Bill's pieces that I've appeared in, and one of several I've done with John Fleck. We are the embracing couple on the far left, sandwiched between Bill and Kira's son Blake above us and Bill below us. Kira is the blond woman in the top center frame.
John and I begin in a neutral standing position, and after several seconds he slaps me hard across the face. I recoil and then slowly return to a neutral standing position. We embrace, then stand facing each other again. I slap him equally hard across the face. He recoils. Lather, rinse, repeat for about fifteen minutes. It was shot as one continuous take, with a boom mic above us to record the sounds of the slaps, so we couldn't pull our punches. There were specific marks we had to hit so as to remain equidistant from the corner of the room. We spent a fair amount of time in rehearsal, and I believe we shot a total of four 15-minute takes, so there was a great deal of slapping to endure! Indeed, when I got home I discovered an enormous blood blister on the inside of my left cheek. The things we do for art!
I think the piece is quite beautiful and it speaks to something we can all relate to: the feeling of being caught up in a repetitive cycle with no apparent means of escape. Pouring water endlessly into a cracked bowl, the water seeping out from the bottom as more fills the bowl from the top. Endlessly moving household goods from one side of the room to the other. Shoveling the same pile of dirt back and forth. And slapping and embracing the same person, over and over and over again. Each of the actions are shot with loving simplicity and deep compassion for the human condition, all of us congregants in the Chapel of Frustrated Actions and Futile Gestures.
The invitation to the gallery show in London, which I was unable to attend (dammit).
John Fleck and me, before the slapping begins. (photo by Kira Perov)
BILL VIOLA
Going Forth By Day, 2002
Panel 4 “The Voyage”
Video/sound installation
A projected image cycle in five parts
Five High-Definition color video channels projected onto walls in dark room; two channels of stereo sound for four panels; one panel with 4 channels spatial quadraphonic sound
Ideal room dimensions: 6.1 x 24.1 x 8.15 m (20 x 79 x 26 ¾ ft)
Performers: John Fleck, Valerie Spencer, Lois Stark, Richard Stobie, Ernie Charles, Butch Hammett, Willie Jackson, Bill Viola
36:00 minutes
Photo: Kira Perov
The entire 5-panel work is inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In The Voyage, John Fleck and I play husband and wife who are holding vigil at his dying father's bedside. The elderly man's dead wife waits patiently on the shore of a lake for her husband to join her, as their worldly possessions are loaded onto a barge. This segment had a special resonance for Bill, as his own father had recently died. Bill chose to appear in the work (something he hadn't done for many years), playing the Angel of Death who locks the door of the father's room after he has crossed over.
Our portion of the image was shot at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach in front of an enormous green screen. The other portion was shot at Lake Piru. The piece is one continuous 36-minute take, and begins with John and I walking up the steep, sandy hill to the house, entering the room, greeting the father, getting him water, and sitting down. The room was miked, so we were able to speak softly to each other. Tears were shed by that bedside, most definitely.
Eventually we get up to leave. After we walk back down the hill, Bill appears with a large padlock and locks the door, signifying the father's death. John and I return, and when he discovers the lock and realizes what it means, he pounds on the door and cries out for his father. I try to comfort him, knowing that there is nothing I can do to ease his pain. It was a powerfully moving experience that I will never forget.
Going Forth By Day had its premiere showing at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, followed by a gala opening at the Guggenheim in New York, which I was fortunate to have attended.
Images From the Book About the Making of Going Forth By Day
Book Cover.
Inspirational quote from Bills' journal about the work.
Description of the action in The Voyage.
Richard Stobie, John Fleck, me, and Bill Viola playing our parts.
Saying goodbye.
The light is extinguished.
The wife waits.
The couple is reunited after death.
It was quite a production.
The back cover of the book.
The Passions
"Bill Viola's new video works give an intimate look at emotions expressed in silence and opened up by slow motion. Reflecting his fascination with older European devotional paintings, The Passions uses modern technology to explore the power and complexity of emotions, which have captivated Eastern and Western artists, mystics, and philosophers for centuries."--text from Getty promotional materials
In 2000, Viola took part in an exhibition at the National Gallery in London, in which living artists were asked to respond to, and show alongside, works in the National's collection. Inspired by the National Gallery's Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns) by Hieronymus Bosch, Viola's Quintet of the Astonished was both a homage and a departure. Several other Quintets were also inspired by Bosch's work, and the later pieces in the Passions series were continuations of the initial exploration.
The technical aspects of this work were rather extraordinary. Forgive me if I'm not entirely accurate, because it was a long time ago and I most certainly have mis-remembered some of the finer details. The images were shot using a very large film camera which was cranked at an enormously fast speed--something like 350 frames per second. The purpose of this was to be able to slow the clips down while still retaining an ultra-fine image quality. Our movements were slowed down to such a huge extent that at first glance they appear to be a still images. What was a 90-second performance in real-time became a 16-minute, minutely detailed meditation on the arc of human emotion.
The cover of the book of The Passions.
BILL VIOLA
Observance, 2002
Color High-Definition video on plasma display mounted on wall
120.7 x 72.4 x 10.2 cm (47 ½ x 28 ½ x 4 in)
Performers: Alan Abelew, Sheryl Arenson, Frank Bruynbroek, Carol Cetrone, Cathy Chang, Ernie Charles, Alan Clark, JD Cullum, Michael Irby, Tanya Little, Susan Matus, Kate Noonan, Paul O’Connor, Valerie Spencer, Louis Stark, Richard Stobie, Michael Eric Strickland, Ellis Williams
10:14 minutes
Photo: Kira Perov
In this piece we were tasked with remembering someone who had gone from us. Bill was vague in his instructions, leaving it up to each actor to fill in the blanks with his or her own particular story. My beloved grandfather had recently died unexpectedly, so I needed no prompting to find someone for whom to grieve. We stood in a line and slowly walked forward, gazing at a simple vase of flowers, before walking to the back of the line. I was honored when Bill asked me to be the first in line, starting off Observance with my tearful image. (photo by Kira Perov).
Description from the book of The Passions.
BILL VIOLA
Mater, 2001
Color video diptych on two freestanding hinged LCD flat panels
40.6 x 65.4 x 14 cm (16 x 25 ¾ x 5 ½ in)
Performers: Valerie Spencer, Lois Stark
12:30 minutes
Photo: Kira Perov
These images of me and Lois Stark were shot at different times on different days, neither one of us having seen the other's work. Bill directed us in such a way that our emotions and physical positions aligned in a rather remarkable way. Bill's "no makeup" policy required me to check my vanity at the door for this close-up portrait, but looking at it 13 years hence, I definitely appreciate the beauty of our naked, honest faces side-by-side in a way I wasn't able to at the time. (image from the book of The Passions).
(image from the book of The Passions).
(image from the book of The Passions).
Description from the book of The Passions.
BILL VIOLA
The Quintet of the Unseen, 2000
Color video rear projection on screen mounted on wall in dark room
Projected image size: 1.4 x 2.4 m (4 ½ x 8 ft); room dimensions variable
Performers: Valerie Spencer, Weba Garretson, John Malpede, John Fleck, Dan Gerrity
16:28 minutes
Photo: Kira Perov
Each of the five actors were given separate emotions to explore, and none of us knew what the others' emotions were. Mine was Anger, which I think is rather evident. The frantically speeding camera caused an unholy racket, requiring Bill to use a megaphone to yell his directions to us as we rode the specific wave of emotion that he had laid out for us in rehearsals. I appeared in several of these group pieces over the course of a couple of days, shooting multiple takes each time. I definitely felt like a wrung-out sponge by the end of each day, but it was worth it to be able to work with such wonderful generous performers.
Image from the book on the making of The Passions.
BILL VIOLA
The Quintet of Remembrance, 2000
Color video rear projection on screen mounted on wall in dark room
Projected image size: 1.4 x 2.4 m (4 ½ x 8 ft); room dimensions variable
Performers: Weba Garretson, John Malpede, Mary Pat Gleason, Valerie Spencer, Dan Gerrity
16:28 minutes
Photo: Kira Perov
This is the very first piece of video art that was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was a surreal experience to visit the Met, plop down on a soft couch in a dark room, and watch myself slowly unfurl in a super-slow-mo tidal wave of anger over the course of sixteen minutes surrounded by unseen art-lovers watching the work along with me.
Image from the book of The Passions.