Bill Viola - The lucid dream

Recently a friend of mine - Arno Heeren - was doing some researches on icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and in the infinity universe internet is, he landed on Alienation > this post < . Not only does it reveal our similar visual tastes (I asked Arno to do my cover for Melody For Aliens) but also that my blog still exists somewhere in the web. Therefore, I decided to write again about my cultural experiences when it's worth it. And the first french retrospective of Bill Viola at the Grand Palais worths it a million times.

The first time I heard about him was in my first year of art school during my "art video" class. Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik and Viola were often cited as precursors considering that the video could be anything other than a new technology. Early on, Viola admits the influence of Marshall Mc Luhan "The medium is the message" over his works. Of course, these were words and what I had in front of my eyes was for instance "The Space between the teeth". For some reasons, watching the artist facing the camera and suddenly starting shouting didn't leave me a deep impression...but rather confirmed my doubts that I was in some kind of secret sect of psychopaths.

However one year later, wandering in my beautiful and beloved city of Venice with my dad (best art exhibitions partner ever) we stopped by a little church where Bill Viola was showing this piece:

Ocean without a shore

Entering this Ocean, we stood in a darkened church before three large video monitors that showed people approaching slowly and singly from behind an invisible wall of rushing water. Once they've crossed this unseen barrier, the hazy grainy tones silhouettes transform into full color as if they've been brought to life. Vulnerable, striking, intense, this is where I met Viola for the first time. A slow motion aesthetic that turns each emotive glance into a thousand words. His spiritual vision has often led him to exhibit in holy places. To him "museums work as churches of cathedrals: they indicate all that we inspire and help us to turn the material world in a personal vision"

The Veiling

Viola is not just a video artist. He engages you with his installations, you're part of it. It's obvious in the veiling piece. Images of a man and a woman moving through dark landscapes are projected face to face through nine suspended translucent veils. I felt instantly like I was floating in a dream.

Catherine's room

A day, a year, unfolds across five screens. From sunrise to sunset, from spring to winter, we discover a woman in her every day activities. Viola wrote in his notebook "for the woman who takes confort in herself, who finds companionship in an empty room". As I dedicate an OBSESSION with women's rooms as my early paintings and new paintings suggest but also my new video clip (first song in french) I couldn't feel more related to this particular work.

The Dreamers

The Dreamers is its most recent piece in which he replays an episode of his life. When he was six years old, Viola nearly drowned and realized in the depth of the water the immensity of the world surrounding. Peacefully immersed in the water, beings of all ages float like if they were about to be baptized. Water is a constant feature of Viola's artworks and when I think of his use of slow motion, it seems that his sight is always blurry, dreamy, like if was always filming underwater.

2014. Most of us have iPhones, computers and other devices to connect at the speed of light to anyone, anything at anytime. However Viola succeeds in this exhibition in stopping the flow, the flux and maybe the time. People are wandering from one room to another in a kind of meditation, self and common meditation. This picture I made of the last room is the perfect illustration.

Bathing in a sensorium of light and sound, Viola will immerse you into a lucid dream.

Daenerys

These are pictures I made of my BFF.
I know her since she became my neighbor at seven years old and my dad forced me to spend time playing with her and her sister. I was so pissed.

Since then, our friendship has been nothing but an amount of scandals and other dramas we like to regroup under "scandramas".

I've always thought she had the beauty of an elf with her diaphanous skin and her golden blond hair. When I started photography at the age of ten, she was my first model. I remember shooting her holding her cat with her glasses and her fake curls I made with her older sister iron. She was so shy and introverted.

This is what she is sixteen mother fucking years later: a contemporary version of Daenerys.

 

 

 

Golden Alien

Golden Alien

Melody For Aliens first video clip ! It's a footage of images shot in the Death Valley this summer during the trip that changed my life.

Melody For Aliens

This is my band > Melody For Aliens < and this is what we do. Hope you'll like it. ☮ Peace ☮

Mustang

Golden Alien

Great Army

The Bird House

 Rue de la Cigogne

 As every year since highschool, I filled my luggage with some clothes, books to draw on and moved to a new place: Brussels. Emilie and Arthur, two of my best mates I met in art school were living there and convinced me to join them. On the first week, I found a very cute flat/art studio in the center just across their street (just 30 steps from their flat) on two floors separated by a spiral staircase.

 

La rue de la cigogne (Ooievaarstraat in dutch) is straight out of the past. Cobblestone floor and gabled houses have stopped time in this peaceful downtown. 70 m long lane often called impasse because of its narrowness and the fact that very often my neighboors set up chairs and table before their doorstep when it is good weather. 
This medieval commercial street follows the path of the first enclosure intramural Brussels and was long inhabited by modest valets and peddlers. I love the fact that I probably sleep in the same room where a hundred years ago a fortuneteller predicted the future in her crystal ball. I love my life here, I'm in love with the city, with my street, with the people I meet, with the weather (a grey monochromatic sky). Everyting inspires me !

The Bird House 

I decided to decorate my witch house according to the name of the street (cigogne = stork) and therefore birds. My first purchase was a bird house of course I found in an antique for a few euros and a bird cage in which I store candles. Finally this big blue chest of drawers from Ikea that I customized with different buttons I bought on flea markets. As for the room I opted for a princess (no surprise) bed that I customize with pearls (like they do in New Orleans when the hang pearls on trees and everywhere around their houses to stay away from evil spirits) and fabric. In front of the bed I created a wall bazaar with a mixture of drawings, jewelry, and curiosities all at the vertical. It's in progress and I still don't have a couch to welcome couch surfers and friends. All the decoration is very cheap, flea markets, Ikea, les petits riens... I would like a DIY couch or - if possible - a true meridian ! Here are some inspirations : 

Greetings from witch city !!

Industrial Castle

Right wing of the castle

I found a place I could be locked in forever and live the more peaceful life I could dream of. It is thanks to Ricardo Bofill who found a disused cement factory from the turn of the century crossed by subterrean galleries and huge machine rooms and then decided to turn it into a magical castle.

Stairs climbing to nowhere, structures that sustained nothing, pieces of iron hanging in the air, huge spaces filled with a magic emptiness, all these surrealist elements provide the right balance between a fairy tale manor, a sexy underground lifestyle and the accoustic reverberation of a religious temple.

Veranda for sunny days lunch

Studio and Meeting Room

Living Room

The Room of Mirrors

View From the Tower

The Winter Room

Under Your Spell - Desire Cover

The new version of "Under Your Spell" with the studio recording :)