[spectre] 3 Bill Viola Titles Now Available on DVD for the first time from Microcinema International

[Joel S. Bachar]

3 Bill Viola Titles Now Available on DVD for the first time from Microcinema
International

Microcinema International is proud to make available for the first time on
DVD, three of the most important works of video art by Bill Viola, one of
the most important video artists in the world:

1.	Hatsu Yume (First Dream)
2.	I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like 
3.	The Passing


Bill Viola: Hatsu Yume (First Dream)


"I was thinking about light and its relation to water and to life, and also
its opposite - darkness or the night and death. I thought about how we have
built entire cities of artificial light as refuge from the dark. Video
treats light like water - it becomes a fluid on the video tube. Water
supports the fish like light supports man. Land is the death of the fish.
Darkness is the death of man." 
- Bill Viola, 1981 

HATSU-YUME (FIRST DREAM) is Bill Viola's masterpiece, the greatest work by
one of the most important video artists in the world. A spiritual allegory
equating light and dark with life and death, Hatsu-Yume was produced in
Japan in 1981 while Viola was artist-in-residence at the Sony Corporation.
The title refers to Japanese folklore, wherein things done on the first day
of a new year are significant. But the tape is not to be taken literally as
a dream. For Viola, it's more like the aboriginal concept of dreamtime, the
creation of the world. That's why, as a whole and in its parts, Hatsu-Yume
progresses from darkness to light, stillness to motion, silence to sound,
simplicity to complexity, nature to civilization. There are two interwoven
themes: the dark water world of fish, and Buddhist rituals invoking the
souls of dead ancestors. As in a dream, we frequently can't tell if these
wordless streams of image and sound are unfolding in real time, slow-motion
or time-lapse. A work of extravagant pictorial beauty, Hatsu-Yume represents
the most painterly use of light in the history of video. Form is content:
the light that lures fish to their death protects human life. At once
ominous majestic, and deeply spiritual, Hatsu-Yume is the work of a
visionary poet of image and sound. 

DVD, 2006, 56 minutes
CATALOG # MC-592
$ 39.95 SRP $ 49.95 Educational
STREET DATE: 11/28/2006 

Details:
http://www.microcinema.com/programResult.php?program_id=592


Bill Viola: I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like 

An epic journey in five chapters, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS I AM LIKE is a
personal investigation into the inner states and connections to animal
consciousness we all possess. In a stream of images of striking clarity,
depth and beauty, woven within a subtle fabric of natural sound, Bill Viola
evokes a timeless view of the natural world and our place in it. This is a
major contribution to contemporary video art that masterfully speaks to us
in the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories. Bill
Viola and Kira Perov gathered images for this video work over a period of
two years. In the course of their travels they spent several weeks with a
freely roaming herd of buffalo in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota,
recorded a time-lapse sequence beside a glacial lake in the Canadian Rocky
Mountains, and attended a week-long firewalking ritual at a Hindu Temple on
the island of Fiji. During This time, Viola was also artist-in-residence at
the San Diego Zoo. 

- Kathy Rae Huffman, Curator/Producer, The Contemporary Art Television Fund 

DVD, 2006, 89 minutes
CATALOG # MC-593
$ 39.95 SRP $ 49.95 Educational
STREET DATE: 11/28/2006 

Details:
http://www.microcinema.com/programResult.php?program_id=593


Bill Viola: The Passing

"Rarely, if ever, has video been so visionary in its mood, so poetic in its
language and so powerful in its emotional impact." 

-Steven Bode 

THE PASSING is not only among Viola's best works, it is arguably the most
important video art work of the late 20th century. It inhabits a penumbral
world between consciousness and sub consciousness, dreams and reality. These
fleeting thoughts are bought more clearly into focus via footage of Viola's
family and, in turn, connected up to the passage of the generations and the
ceaseless cycle of birth and death. Bill Viola (born in 1951) has been
working in video and experimental music since 1970. His videotapes and
installations have been exhibited world-wide, at amongst others, The Museum
of Modern Art (New York), the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Documenta 6
(Kassel), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the National Museum of Modern Art
(Tokyo) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Viola is considered a pioneer
in video-art and has been awarded many prizes. 

DVD, 2006, 54 minutes
CATALOG # MC-594
$ 39.95 SRP $ 49.95 Educational
STREET DATE: 11/28/2006 

Details:
http://www.microcinema.com/programResult.php?program_id=594

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