Forum expanded Talk and Show
Episode 2: Materiality - Conversations
08.02. 14:00 - 17:00 Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart (admission free)
Hatsu-Yume (First Dream)
Hatsu-Yume is structured on the cycle of one day, images gradually moving from light into darkness, presenting a visual journey through the landscape of Japan from the rural areas of the far north to the enminuous nocturnal underworld nighttime scenes of the streets of modern Tokyo. It was produced in Japan in 1981 while Viola was artist-in-residence at the Sony Corporation’s Atsugi research laboratories where he and Kira Perov worked with analog three-quarter and one inch tapes. In 2006 the tapes were restored to a revealing new image quality.
USA 1981 (2006 restored version), videotape, 57 minutes
Director: Bill Viola
Producer and production assistant: Kira Perov
Production assistants: Donna Matorin, Joey Santarromana, Robert Campbell Restoration editor: Brian Pete
Performer: Shinnosuke Misawa
Supported by Sony Corporation of Japan and The Television Laboratory at WNET/Thirteen, New York
The Passing
A personal response to the spiritual extremes of birth and death in the family. Black-and-white nocturnal imagery and underwater scenes depict a twilight world hovering on the borders of human perception and consciousness, where the multiple lives of the mind (memory, reality, and vision) merge.
USA 1991 (2008 restored version) in Memory of Wynne Lee Viola, 54 minutes
Director: Bill Viola
Producer and production assistant: Kira Perov
Production assistants: Donna Matorin, Joey Santarromana, Robert Campbell
Editor and restoration: Brian Pete
Funded by National Endment for the Arts. ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel
Bill Viola, born 1951 in New York. He has beeninstrumental in establishing video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University, New York, in 1973 and for 38 years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and single channel videotapes that have been shown in museums and galleries worldwide and are found in many distinguished collections. Bill Viola and Kira Perov, his wife and long-time collaborator, live and work in Long Beach, California.
