An Instrument of Simple Sensation

Bill Viola's worldview is deeply rooted in Eastern philosophy, which identifies the whole with its parts and sees the universe as a harmonious totality and humanity as a part of nature. Viola does not distinguish between reality and our mental constructs of it. When he turns his camera on nature, it is to direct attention inward. His images focus on transitional states in which consciousness expands, thoughts are released, and the inner being floats freely in the realm of dreams, illusions, memories, and traumas. At the center of An Instrument of Simple Sensation is a monitor showing a video of an exposed and vulnerable heart whose beat reverberates around the exhibition space. It is the heart of a metaphorical body. At its head, symbolizing culture and thought, is a porcelain vase placed on a small table; behind it is a magnifying glass (the "eye") through which an upside-down image of the vase is projected onto a screen. At its foot is a heavy rock, which anchors the thin wire that keeps the body together and through which the sound of the heartbeat resonates. A metal bowl of water, the primordial source of life, reflects the beating heart on the screen and also reminds us that the human body is made up in large part of water. Profoundly influential, Viola stretched the limits of video art by adding the dimension of space. In An Instrument of Simple Sensation, we are inside the "body." The raw material of the artwork is the experience itself, and its site is not on the screen or between museum walls, but deep within the person who enters and observes.