Bill Viola’s 'Nantes Triptych': Unearthing the sources of its condensed temporality

Carlos Vara Sánchez

doi:10.14591/aniki.v2n1.105

Carlos Vara Sánchez Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Facultad de Humanidades, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14591/aniki.v2n1.105

Keywords: Bill Viola, video installation, temporality, Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

In this text we intend to analyze Bill Viola’s video installation Nantes Triptych (1992) as an example of the richness which lies in the liminal spaces between arts. We defend the thesis that the utilization of the traditional pictorial structure of the triptych in this particular work, along with the powerful audiovisual material, renders a kairological event available to the viewer. This temporal experience makes possible an existential experience when in front of this video installation. To discuss this assumption we will use classical art theory texts about the triptychs, as well as, among others, Deleuze’s texts about time image and the triptych structure, Agamben’s concept of kairos, the concept of kairological artwork coined by David Chan and the philosophy of temporality developed by Merleau-Ponty.

Author Biography

Carlos Vara Sánchez, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Facultad de Humanidades, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

Carlos Vara Sánchez holds a BSc on Biology, a MsC on Neurosciences, and a MA on Humanities. Currently, he is working on his doctoral thesis at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University studying the video installations of Bill Viola as a way of contrasting the philosophical and neuroscientific approaches to the role of the temporal experience in aesthetic perception. His publications and research interests span a wide range of issues on the boundaries between phylosophy, art and neuroscience.

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