Last time in the symposium, I said I would like to do something interactive related to sentiment by using different sense as the medium in the next stage. Most of us have different senses. And what everyone has is emotion. It is basic but it also complex and abstract. It is not easy to explain what it is and how is feel actually. So I would like to present emotion in concrete by artefact way and let the audience feel with combining different senses as the medium.
I am doing my research these days. I find a series of works, “The Passions” by Bill Viola which is inspiring. Bill Viola is an American video and sound artist often emotional in a classical sense, recalling medieval or renaissance painting.
“The Passions” which is a series begun in 2000. A feature of the portraits and tableaux of the series is soundless and the incorporation of time, which relocates the subjects to a location and dimension outside our own. Viola tries to explore the power & range of human emotions and how the extremes of emotion, in which the ability to reflect is lost actually, can be represented.
“Silent Mountain” (2001) is one of the video work from this series. It is a muted video showing a man screamed hard. Although sound removed from the video, it does not affect us to understand and imagine how loud he shouts or even how he feels.
“The Quintet of the Astonished” (2000) is another work from “The Passions” and “Quintet” series (The Quintet of the Unseen, The Quintet of the Astonished, The Quintet of Remembrance and The Quintet of the Silent).
The composition of five individuals with a high contrast lighting and dark background likes a painting in the past such as Caravaggio. They do not move or leave from their original positions. They experience the rising emotional energy independently without interfering the others. By the visual effect of slow-motion makes the details of each expression visible. It also creates a subjective, psychological space where time is suspended for performer and audience alike. Besides, it like a moving painting.
Wong Chui Yin, Iris 