Video artist Bill Viola brings seven time-bending works to Seoul

One of the few video artists to have truly broken through to mainstream audiences has arrived in Seoul for a solo exhibition.
His name is Bill Viola... and our Yim Yoon-hee shares some of his works with us in the next report.

Cascading in the wrong direction,.... liquid flows from black, to red, to opaque white, finally becoming crystal clear.
American video artist Bill Viola has for many years experimented with time and the human experience,... and the relationship between the two.
He also points out how mass media has become a tool by which to witness the suffering of humanity.

"In Buddhism, of course, all life is suffering, and a lot of other cultures have that same idea. Because we need to suffer."

There's a unique characteristic to all of his works,... images that invoke strong emotions and hint at a spiritual world in the midst of reality... and images that seem to bend time.


"It's filmed very quickly, but it's shown at normal speeds, so 1 minute is stretched to 10 minutes, or even 80 minutes. It's a very special experience for the audience."

Viola even recreates the suffering of four martyrs, tortured by the four elements.
And even though his works contain images of pain and sorrow, Viola wants them to represent the ideas of perseverance, endurance and sacrifice in our mass-media-dominated world.
Yim Yoon-hee, Arirang News.