Bill Viola (born 1951) is considered a pioneer in the medium of video art and is internationally recognised as one of today´s leading artists. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content and historical reach. For over thirty-five years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments and electronic music performances. Viola´s video installations – total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound – employ state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. They are shown in museums and galleries worldwide and are found in many distinguished collections. His single channel video tapes have been widely broadcast and presented in cinema, while his writings have been extensively published and translated for international readers. Viola uses video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus on universal human experiences – birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness – and have roots in both Eastern and Western art, as well as spiritual traditions including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism and Christian mysticism. Using the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicate to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly and in their own personal way.
He holds honorary doctorates from Syracuse University (1995), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1997), California Institute of the Arts (2000) and the Royal College of Art, London (2004) among others, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000. In 2006 he was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.
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