Bill Viola -- Video Black -- Gabi Smith


My first question about Bill Viola’s essay, Video Black – The Mortality of the Image, concerns his first category, the Eternal Image. I thought I was understanding what he meant by icon until it is clarified that his use is not to be confused with a pop culture ideal of an ‘icon’ and I was like whoops okay I’m wrong. I understand that they are about consistency and intention, but aside from that I think I need some clarification.

I think I’m overthinking the Temporal Image category? At first I was confused but I think it just boils down to the simple fact that watching a video (a moving image) is directly related to our perception of time (because, you know, movement).

This then segways into the Temporary Image, which to my understanding is more of a mechanism to understand how images go from one category to another and less a category in its own right. Despite the notion of the icon (a still, fortified, importance) and the Temporal Image (the introduction of change in the image itself) images become Temporary in their unceasing effort to dissect and monumentalize time. (Possibly just answered my own question?)

So then we arrive at The Last Image. I was really interested in this part because this is something I often think about. The book ends. The constraints. I had never considered before that the cut to black infers this kind of send into oblivion, as if the story is over and now it’s just jettisoned into the void or something. It’s simultaneously the only way to distinguish a definite end, inferring the film exists still but is not being shown but also leaving a sort of gaping hole where the viewer was once allowed to peer into the world of the video. There’s also a point to be made of how the cut to black draws such attention to itself that instead of inciting further immersion through after viewing, it’s like a blaring reminded: THIS WAS A VIDEO. THIS WAS A FILM. THIS WAS A STORY. THIS WAS NOT REAL. YOU WATCHED THIS AND NOW IT IS OVER. MOVE ON. MOVE ON. In that way, it is a death. A death of the fiction that is media. Or like a coma until you wake it up to re-watch it maybe.


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