Famous Video Artist Passes Away

(OurNationNews.com) Pioneering video artist Bill Viola has passed away at the age of 73.

His death was announced via his website, which stated that he passed away peacefully on July 12 in his home in Long Beach, California. His stated cause of death were complications associated with the early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Viola was known for his unique and creative approach to video production and new media, where he created an immersive experience viewers and audiences could not find anywhere else. One of his masterpieces was his work on Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”, a groundbreaking production that captivated audiences in multiple cities around the world such as Los Angeles, Paris, and New York in the U.S.; Kobe, Japan; London, U.K.; Toronto, Canada; Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Madrid, Spain.

In a 2013 interview about the project, Viola said that he wanted audiences to have a better appreciation and deeper understanding of the “nature of our short time here on Earth” and the profound value of the relationships people have “with the things and people in the world.”

Viola began his pioneering career in video in the 1970s, beginning as an audiovisual assistant, but gained renown for quickly adapting and utilizing the latest techniques and technologies in video recording and editing. He was one of the first visual artists in Hollywood to play around and explore the potential of special effects. Much of his work also reflected his dabblings in various spiritual disciplines such as Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism, and Islamic Sufism. One such example was an installation in 1983 entitled “Room for St. John of the Cross,” where he utilized both video and audio in attempt to make audiences and viewers better feel what it must have been like for the saint to live in his tiny jail cell where he wrote poetry while also enduring beatings and abuse.

Viola is survived by Kira Perov, his wife and longtime creative collaborator who also serves as the director of the artist’s eponymous studio; and his two sons, Blake and Andrei, along with a daughter-in-law, Aileen Millman.