Study for Emergence by Bill Viola

2
Shifting Encounters:
An Exploration of Bill Violas Study for Emergence
as Passionate, as Image, as Video, and as Interactive
by Rebecca Henriksen
I could tell that the figures were moving, albeit slowly, but at first I was unsure what, if
anything, was happening. I watched the video straight through, shifting my weight back and forth
between my feet. The next time I came, I found a folding stool and sat down to examine the video
more closely. I watched it repeatedly for over an hour; watching, writing, watching, thinking,
watching. What strikes me the most when I view this, as well as other video pieces, is most peoples
lack of endurance to view video pieces that stray from what we have been conditioned to expect
video to be: on a television screen, fast paced, with sound, showing us contemporary images of life
and telling us something very clearlywhether that be the weather, the news or jokes to make us
laugh. Because the medium of video is so ubiquitous in this society, and because of, among other
things, the familiarity of television shows and the democratization of video via YouTube, video art
can be a challenging concept. And yet, video artist Bill Viola has managed to achieve extensive
critical acclaim as well as widespread public appeal. In this paper, I will examine some of the
methodological and archival challenges that face video artists today, through a case study of a piece
by Bill Viola titled Study for Emergence. First, I will give an overview of the piece and how it is
displayed. I will also look at the history of the work, how it was created and the series of which it is
a part. I will consider what inspired Viola to create these evocative pieces. I will also focus on the
spiritual content and images that Viola has chosen to use in this piece. Finally, I will look into the
particularity of video as an art form, as well as explore viewer experience and response.
One is first drawn to Violas laptop-size screen because of the vibrant colors and the subtle
and slow but steady movements. Two women in an ambiguous spacethough Viola writes it is a
courtyardsit facing away from each other on opposite sides of a marble sarcophagus. They seem

3
to be upset, grieving, and yet it is unclear regarding what. Their clothing strikes one as
contemporary, yet combined with the ambiguous setting and cistern, one questions the time period.
The woman on the left is older, has a cropped haircut and is wearing a long dark blue garment that
might be a dress with a black sweater and sandals. The younger woman on the right has longer hair,
is wearing black pants with a white tank top and is barefoot. At the beginning of the video both
women have their heads covered, but the woman on the right takes off her scarf and while she is
turning her head, she notices the other woman. Only when the younger woman turns towards her a
second time, though, does the older woman acknowledge her presence. The video is without sound
and Viola writes that time becomes suspended and indeterminate, the purpose and destination of
their actions unknown.i Then, the woman on the right turns towards the cistern, apparently
noticing something. A man, looking stony and dead, starts emerging from the sarcophagus which
one now realizes is filled with water. The water overflows onto the marble steps, catching the
attention of the older woman. Both women seem extremely surprised at this miraculous event
and the younger woman grasps his arm and caresses it as if greeting a lost lover.ii The man falls
forward and the older woman catches him while the younger woman clasps his feet. The women
lower his limp body to the ground. Is he dead? Resurrected? The younger woman pulls a billowing
sheet from her bag and covers his body, initially reaching to cover his face, but subsequently
stopped by the older woman who is holding his head in her lap and caressing his hair. Does he need
to be able to breathe or is the older woman taking this opportunity to say good-bye (again?)? As the
older woman is stroking his head, the younger woman takes his right hand, examines it, kisses it and
then lays her head on his chest while holding his hand to the back of her own head. Viola writes of
this scene, Cradling his head on her knees, the older woman finally breaks down in tears as the
younger woman, overcome with emotion, tenderly embraces his body.iii Is this who the women

4
have been mourning? The image fades to black and then, after a few seconds, loops and returns to
the start of the scene. This repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
Having described the action in this video piece, I now turn to more formal concerns. Most
of the action takes place within the lower half of the picture plane, with the man activating the
highest point of the plane at the epitome of his ascent. The image is balanced throughout and
remains roughly symmetrical. The cistern looks classical in its design and it displays a reddishorange circle outlined in green that highlights the white cross shape on the front. One notices that
the marble of the cistern, the skin of the man and the sheet with which he is covered are all a creamy
white. This stands in stark contrast to the ruddier skin tones of the two women and their more
colorful clothes, and even contrasts with the neutrally-colored backdrop and ground. While the
colors are rich, they match the movements in the piece: poignant but never jarring.
Viola has framed the piece beautifully, though in a conservative and traditional manner, with
all of the action appearing on screen (as opposed to being suggested off screen or moving between
on and off screen). Even though one is directly privy to all of the action, one is still left with many
questions. Viola mentions that the space is meant to be a courtyard, and yet at the same time the
scene feels staged, which, of course, may be because it is. The space seems calculated as does the
action, and yet simultaneously trying to portray a spontaneous event.
Because of the level of calculation that this piece implies, one begins to wonder how Viola
pulls off this hauntingly beautiful, and very wet, feat. John Walsh, writing of his experience visiting
the artist in his studio while Emergence was being filmed explains that the set consists of not only a
marble wellhead in the center, but also a system to produce a flood from the well and a large
reservoir to recycle the water.ivv Viola has created this entire set and has hired a professional
camera crew to do the shooting. He has also hired three actors: Weba Garretson, Sarah Steben and
John Hay. Hay, Walsh writes, is supposed to rise-up from the well using just his leg strength, but

5
since he is supposed to be dead, it cant look as though he is propelling himself.vi He does a
remarkably smooth job and looks eerily stony in his white greasepaint. They have already done six
shoots and everyone is weary, but Viola decides they have time to shoot one more; over the course
of two days, the three actors rehearse without the water and then they do the seven wet takes. Yet
for this seventh take, everyone wants to go home: Weba Garretson, who plays the older woman, is
exhausted and out of sorts, but this time the action has such electricitygenerated partly by anger
and a desire to get it over withthat when the camera whines to a stop, everybody cheers. Viola
jumps on stage to embrace the actors, and everybody knows thats it. And it was.vii As artists have
done and continue to do studies for drawings and paintings, video art pieces too require careful
preparation and preliminary studies that allow artists to work out exactly how they would like to
create and give materiality to their ideas.
In Violas case, these studies often involve not just the artist, but an entire cast and crew.
Viola carefully communicates his vision to the collaborators, who then must work together to create
this piece of art. Walsh notes the similarities between producing paintings and the process by which
Viola created much of his earlier work, even though these earlier piecesusually large projections
of manipulated images with soundlooked radically different from old master paintings.viii
Walsh writes that, like landscape and genre painters drawing in sketchbooks, a video artist in the
1970s and 80s like Viola roamed around observing and capturing the real world, stockpiled the tape,
then edited it and altered it by himself to make works that embody his personal temperament and
insight.ix Walsh goes on to describe how Violas newer works, while resembling paintings in their
final formthey are framed, on a wall, silent, steady, and almost still, offering direct, intimate
encountersare nevertheless more akin to that of a feature film than a painting in their
production.

6
This fascinating relationship between Violas work for The Passions series and paintings is
crucial for understanding how Viola was inspired to create these pieces. Specifically, Viola was
influenced by the medieval and early-Renaissance tradition of the small devotional picture that could
be easily carried with a person: he says that the art of the fifteenth century especially captivated me,
when the image was in transition to the new optical techniques, and the population was increasingly
mobile. People needed portable images to take with them on the road, and artists responded to this
need.x Viola likens the contemporary changes in technology of image-making to the changes that
were occurring in the fifteenth century: technological changes such as the use of computers and
digital imaging are comparable to those that took place then with the advent of printing from
movable type and the invention of perspective as a means of representing space on a twodimensional surface.xi While painting and video are similar in that they both become visible
through light, a striking difference is the contrast between a paintings static imagery and a videos
shifting imagery. Yet, Violas tendency to reduce the speed of his pieces, sometimes drastically,
heightens the tension for the viewer because of the blurring of expectations that are particular to
each genre of art.
Another aspect of Study for Emergence that is quite arresting is its size. At only about 10 x
13, the piece is quite intimate. Ones experience is like that of watching a movie on ones laptop,
rather than projected onto a screen as one expects when viewing a film in public. Viola was struck
by the image quality that could be attained on a plasma screen, with no glass in front of the image.
Thus, the viewers experience is all the more intimate and dynamic: there is less physically between
the viewer and the image. Questions regarding scale are part of Violas process as he works to
develop his pieces: he feels free to try a variety of sizes, yet the yardstick to which he compares
these is the human body. He is conscious of how people will relate to his pieces, and in the case of

7
Study for Emergence, he has created an intimate setting. When Viola was viewing LCD flat panels for
the first time, he recounts:
I found myself falling into the image, getting lost in its aura, and it was only sixteen inches
wide! This provided the final link I needed to realize that immersion is not dependent on
scale, that it has to do with some other property of the image. Computer screens are
normally placed at reading distance, and the experiences Id had with these close-up images
were just as involving as the other large-scale visual experiences. I thought about how a
small icon of the Madonna is a powerful focal point that can command the entire space of
an enormous cathedral.xii
Alongside the changes in technology, Violas personal life was also in a state of upheaval: his
father was slowly and inexorably dying. When Viola was inspired to create this series he was a
scholar-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute, and also had to travel on occasion with his
twenty-five-year survey exhibition that was on the road for a period of two years. While his father
was alive, but fading, Viola was at the Art Institute of Chicago for a planning meeting. He walked
into a gallery of fifteenth century paintings where Dieric Bouts Crying Madonna was hanging. Viola
remembers she was all by herself, eyes swollen and red in the excruciating detail of the Northern
painters hard-core realism, with tears streaming down her face. I began sobbing uncontrollably. I
couldnt stop.xiii When Viola reflected on this moment, he realized how his relationship to artwork
had changed: instead of being merely a viewer, he had become a participant. The function of
these medieval representational devotional paintings was to aid people in participating empathetically
in the painting and becoming a meditative sufferer.xiv Thomas Faunce writes that the medieval
artist, as does Viola, strove to overcome complacency in matters of spiritual development, the art
arousing heightened emotions which could then be harmonized in prayers for forgiveness and by
redemptive grace.xv Viola creates his pieces with a similar sentiment in mind, trying to engage the
viewer: how can video be an act of self-reflection, while still engaging another person? He has
struggled to discover how to portray the depth of emotions that people experience and create a
connection between and among people through the medium of video.

8
Viola kept these thoughts and experiences in mind as he visited the Gettys collections and
as he attended the weekly scholars seminar titled, Representing the Passions. In the seminar,
scholars discussed how to represent extreme emotional states when their nature defies
representations, being about irrationality and loss of control.xvi Viola recounts that one of the
paintings with which he spent much time was Bouts The Annunciation, which he interprets as being
about a conversation that transcends language, about inner knowledgewhile still dealing with the
theme of Mary becoming pregnant with the Christ child. He also is enthralled by both the
specificity of Gabriels hand gestures, as he points heavenward, and the ambiguity in Marys hand
gestures: is she opening up her hands to receive the message from Gabriel or is she bringing them
together in prayer? Viola transfers these two ideas specifically to his work in Emergence; he makes
Emergence about a poignant, wordless interaction between three people where the symbols and
actions make specific references while also embodying multiple meanings.
As Bouts work inspired Viola conceptually, so Masolinos Pieta inspired Viola visually.
Masolinos fresco of the Pieta shows Mary and St. John placing the dead Christ into the tomb. Viola
recounts that he even sketched this image, which he says he rarely does, and put the image away.
Much of what inspires him, and eventually comes out in his work, is the result of the feelings and
emotions that grow as one lives with images and experiences life with these images in mind. This
transformation of the image, after he has lived with it, into something with which Viola can work,
is crucial. Viola is very clear that he is not interested in recreating or restaging older paintings; he
wants to get inside these paintings, to embody them, to inhabit them, to feel them breathe.xvii
What results from this transformation is the image that is now Emergence, a man rising from a
cistern that is overflowing with water and who is then caught by two emotionally overcome women.
In Mark Kidels short film, Bill Viola and Emergence, Viola explains his own ideas surrounding
the imagery in this piece. He gives two broad meanings, stating also that he does not want to lock

9
the imagery into one meaning, but prefers the meaning to remain fluid and unstable. He says that
from a contemporary perspective, one sees the aftermath of a drowning; theres [sic] two women
pulling a limp, lifeless figure out of water.xviii But if one were to view the piece from what Viola
calls the inner eye, one would see a birth, of water overflowing and a young man whos
practically naked being taken out by women, almost in the function of midwives; of bringing a being
into the world.xix Viola is fascinated and inspired by instability and flux. When asked what his
favorite time of day is, he answered twilight, because he believes that it is at this time when Nature
herself is unstable. The transition from day to night is not a precise switch, but rather a messy shift
when there is still light from the day, when daytime and nighttime creatures are coexisting.
These liminal spaces where meanings blur together, these thresholds where definitive answers
cannot be found, are the places where Viola gets his inspiration, places which also arouse the
feelings he tries to evoke in his pieces. Is this man dead? Is he being resurrected? Is he being
birthed for the first time? Who are these women? Is the one on the left his mother? A
grandmother? A mentor? Is the one on the right a sister? A friend? A lover?
While the imagery in Violas Study for Emergence is ambiguous, it is at the same time grounded
in the Christian religious tradition. When viewing this piece, if one is familiar with the biblical
resurrection story and with religious art historically, one might very well read this piece as a
continuation of imagery that focuses on the dead Christ figure and on the grief of the women
surround him.xx However, Viola argues that themes of crucifixion and resurrection are not
uniquely Christian themes: when artistically portrayed, they can strike a universal emotional chord.
They become not only crucifixion and resurrection, but suffering and death, and birth and the
unfolding of consciousness. Caridad Svich writes that Violas work is modeled on classical paintings
and altarpieces, reworking traditional Christian narratives by stripping them of their Christian
context.xxi Thus, these new images draw on and reference traditional Christian imagery, yet they

10
also take on a fundamentally transformed life of their own; and yet even these ideas of
transformation and rebirth are also traditional Christian themes. Svich goes on to write that the
reason these images resonate universally is that humans created religion in order to glimpse the
divine; in acknowledging the works of classical painters and fresco artists, Viola reminds us of the
images and stories that have been hard-wired into our brains, and how many of our religious
scenarios, and indeed, the images that we recall from them, were at root human creations made to
understand or throw light upon the divine.xxii Again, the beauty of this artwork is that its skin can
be peeled away repeatedly to reveal numerous layers of meaning.
Another layer of ambiguity in The Passions series is that of the actual expression of the
emotions, of the passions themselves. Rather than scour for people in situations who are
experiencing real emotions, Viola has chosen to hire actors to perform these emotions. Yet, what
constitutes the difference between real feelings and emotions and acted feelings and emotions?
When Viola started working with actors, he realized that the line between real and acted emotions
was extremely fluid, sometimes even nonexistent. Viola also realized that he wanted to strip away
any narrative context and focus solely on the expressing of emotions. He recounts in an interview:
The depth and reality of this world startled me. It completely overturned my preconceptions
about acting, which, coming out of performance art and verit video, I had always classified
in the domain of artificialitythe world of theatricality, of conscious public presentation,
emulation, and simulation. But here were these very real emotions coming from the residual
effects of real experiences within the person. I realized that the artificiality I was coming to
terms with was not in the emotion itself, but in the context for that emotionin other words:
the story or the plot. I was fascinated by the fact that you have someone who is really
crying, feeling real pain, but who is, in the same instant, pretending to be someone else in a
fabricated, parallel story where they are playing a character who is crying at that moment. So
I had the strong desire to get rid of the story, to discard the plot, the narrative, and just deal
with the emotions. I suppose its similar, in a way, to a painter who wants to go into Red as
the experience of pure color, not as part of the pictorial illusion of a rose.xxiii
This removal of the narrative plot line, which Viola likens to the move made by abstract painters,
allows ostensibly for a more pure experience of these emotions. Thus, though Viola has hired actors

11
and has staged his video pieces much like a film, the emotions themselves are real and actually
experienced.
The reason we as viewers and participators in Violas work are able to engage so intensely
with these emotions is because they have been captured on film and slowed down; we have time to
see the minute changes in facial expression, to engage with the people whom we are viewing and to
reflect both on their experiences and our own. Thus, it is because of video and the sculpting of
time that we have this ability to relate to these pieces so intimately.xxiv Video as a medium for art
burst onto the scene in 1965 and, as Viola argues, not since the Renaissance have artists been able
to use a medium that one could say is the dominant communication form of the society. Marc
Mayer elaborates, writing that there is, therefore, no longer a need to expand the idea of art to
embrace the whole range of man-made [sic] things, including all tools and writing in addition to the
useless, beautiful, and poetic things of the world, for in the case of video, they all exist at once in
the same device.xxv In video, the practical and the beautiful are not mutually exclusive. Viola is
fascinated by the video camera itself as a philosophical system that creates surrogate representations
of reality, and especially because of its ubiquity and its ability to convince us that what we are seeing
is the truth, and not a fabrication. Viola believes that video is the language of our time and he thinks
that its ability to be mass produced in its original form is extraordinary. If you buy any of his pieces,
Thats the work! Its not a documentary. [] you are buying the art in the form it was originally
created for. Youre not buying the poster of Cezanne that you can put on your bedroom wall.
Youre buying the video; youre buying the oil painting of the Cezanne, in a sense.xxvi Video art,
therefore, has the potential to further democratize art: people can buy the video on a DVD or in
digital form and view it in their own homes. This revives questions about the place of art in society:
does art belong in museums? Galleries? Public outdoor settings? Homes? On individual laptops?

12
The fact that video is so ubiquitous in our society is one of the reasons why I think Violas
work creates an initial moment of disconnect with the viewer: one is familiar with the medium in
general, but not necessarily how it has been used by Viola. The extreme slowness with which Study
for Emergence plays out draws one in and forces one to evaluate and re-evaluate the imagery. It allows
one the time to notice all of the in-between moments in actions and emotions that one is not able to
see in paintings and are lost or indistinguishable when one experiences life in real time. Viola
takes into account how we as a culture have been trained to view mediated images and, so, he
takes the participant out of both the pace at which we experience life and the speed with which
movies unfold. He deliberately suspends time and alters the sonic environment so that the viewer,
the audience, has to see [his] work differently, and thus is asked to engage with an image outside of
what has become normal in our mediated world.xxvii The audience then begins to realize how
much they have been fixated by still paintings or pictures, imagining the moments just before and
just after the moment captured in the image, or, how wholly conditioned they are to interpret movie
time as the same as our time.
As the audience engages with the Study for Emergence, and as the piece unfolds ever so slowly,
viewers participate in the meditative and suffering state of the figures and come to be aware of their
own humanity and embodiment. Paradoxically, the piece requires real time in order to experience
the drastically decelerated time. David Morgan writes:
The minutes pass slowly in a video installation. The average gallery or museum
visitor spends only a few seconds before each painting or sculpture. Videos take time. []
Video requires you to stand as a body in a public space among other bodies and wonder
what to do with yourself, your material self, as you spend anywhere from two minutes to an
unbearable ten or twenty watching a stream of images on a monitor or projected onto a wall.
There is something about the act of looking in museums that tends to make the viewer
unaware of herself. Video installations challenge this by making you visible to yourselfyou
become a social presence confronting yourself and others, perhaps even becoming part of
the art work itself.
The issue of the bodythe one seen and the one doing the seeingis an important
part of video art. [] Movie theaters provide soft chairs and a dark room for viewers to

13
forget themselves, including their bodies. But video installations in gallery spaces are
altogether different. They are very often about the act of viewing and the time it takes to do
so. They prompt a spatial and temporal self-consciousness that makes us uneasy.xxviii
But, at the same time that the audience is aware of itself, Viola also tries to create moments and
places where people can escape the frantic pace of life and meditate on the profundity of the human
body: what it is, what it can feel, what it can experience, and how it can relate to others. Thus,
viewers become participants in Violas work as they reflect on both the imagery and their embodied
experience of viewing the imagery.
Violas focus on human figurestheir emotions and their relationshipsis what allows this
self reflection by audience members. Again, I turn to Morgan, who so eloquently expresses Violas
fascination with exploring the human condition in his art:
Viola's work suggests that the human condition consists of the fact that we are embodied
beings yearning, but ill-prepared, for communion with one another; that we suffer pain and
loss; that we struggle to transcend our bodies and our suffering by connecting with a larger
or inner aspect of reality; and that we die. Bodies, communion, suffering, transcendence, and
death collectively constitute a condition, a worldview that the artist seeks to investigate in his
work. Whether one is Buddhist or Christian or atheist (of the Camus variety), coming to
terms with suffering and fear and our inability to communicate these states adequately
presumes an understanding of the human condition, and Viola finds video a powerful artistic
means of exploring these existential facts.xxix
Viola uses the combination of video and human bodies to explore these themes. Specifically in
Study for Emergence, the themes of bodies, communion, suffering, transcendence and death are all
present. It is profoundly meaningful that birth and death imagery can be so intertwined and yet
remain so ambiguous. At conception we are in a fundamental relationship with another and even at
birth, we are fragile and mortal. The white greasepaint on Hays reads as vernix; or it also reads as
lifeless and stony death. The women catch him and lower him to the ground; they are relating to
one another and yet it is unclear from where this man has just emerged. Is he at the beginning of
life? Has he just drowned? Has he just been baptized and reborn? Has he died, and are we now

14
witnessing his resurrection? As we view this scene, entering into the grief of these two women, we
experience their suffering as we simultaneously are reminded of the griefs in our own lives. Violas
hope, however, is not to leave the viewer in a state of suffering, but rather to allow viewers to then
leave the exhibit with changed, if ever so faintly, vision of themselves and how they engage the
world.
The ambiguity that Viola creates in his imagery gives his videos life and depth. He refuses to
solidify meanings while simultaneously referencing symbols and traditions that are grounded in
specificity. His Study for Emergence is a glimpse into his creation process and how he creates
contemporary pieces that are laden with historicity. Its intimate size, vibrant colors, universal
themes and extreme slow motion invite the viewer to participate in the piece and to linger. One
must stay long enough to allow oneself to be open to self-reflection and yet one does not necessarily
have to view the piece sequentially in its entiretyone can, or one can return to it and see different
moments each time. However, one chooses to view Violas pieces, one learns to see a little
differently.
i

John Walsh, The Artist in His Studio, Bill Viola, John Walsh, eds., Bill Viola: The Passions (Los
Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003), 140.
ii
Ibid.
iii
Ibid.
iv
Walsh, 261.
v
The piece that I am examining Study for Emergence, is one of the takes that occurred during this
filming session.
vi
Ibid.
vii
Ibid.
viii
Ibid, 262.
ix
Ibid, 263.
x
Bill Viola and Hans Belting A Conversation, June 28, 2002 Bill Viola, John Walsh, eds., Bill
Viola: The Passions (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003), 197.
xi
Richard Morphet, Encounters: New Art from Old, (London: National Gallery Company Limited,
2000), 319.
xii
Viola and Belting, 203.
xiii
Ibid, 198.

15

xiv

Thomas Faunce Nurturing Personal and Professional Conscience in an Age of Corporate

Globalization: Bill Violas The Passions The Medical Journal of Australia, Volume 183 Number 11/12,
5/19 December 2005, 600.
xv
Ibid.
xvi
Viola and Belting, 198.
xvii
Ibid, 199.
xviii
Bill Viola in Bill Viola and Emergence [film] by Mark Kidel (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust,
2002).
xix
Ibid.
xx
Patrick McArdle Ecce Homo: Theological Perspectives on Personhood and the Passions in
Australian EJournal of Theology Pentecost 2006 Special Edition, Issue 7.
xxi
Caridad Svich, A Process of Perception: A Conversation with Bill Viola in Contemporary Theatre
Review Volume 14(2), 2004, 73.
xxii
Ibid.
xxiii
Viola and Belting, 201.
xxiv
Raymond Bellour An Interview with Bill Viola in October, Vol. 34, (Autumn, 1985), 97.
xxv
Marc Mayer Digressions Toward an Art History of Video in Being and Time: The Emergence of
Video Projection Karen Lee Spaulding, ed., (Buffalo: The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 1996), 16.
xxvi
Svich, 79.
xxvii
Ibid, 75.
xxviii
David Morgan, Spirit and Medium: The Video Art if Bill Viola in Image: Art, Faith, Mystery
Issue 26, Spring 2000.
xxix
Ibid.