Ocean without a shore
2007
- Medium
- three-channel colour digital video, sound, plasma screen monitors, audio speakers
- Measurements
- 90 min 420.0 × 670.0 × 997.0 cm (variable) (installation)
- Place/s of Execution
- Long Beach, California, United States
- Edition
- edition of 3
- Accession Number
- 2008.118
- Department
- Contemporary Art
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Loti Smorgon AO and Victor Smorgon AC, 2008
© Bill Viola, courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York Photo: Kira Perov - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
Bill Viola’s Ocean without a shore, which takes its title from the writings of the Andalucian Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi (1165–1240), investigates the threshold between life and death, or as the artist has stated, ‘the presence of the dead in our lives’. The installation is emblematic of Viola’s considered attention to human beings undergoing various states of transformation and renewal. In the installation, three video screens become surfaces for the manifestation of images of the dead attempting to re-enter our world. The physical threshold through which the figures pass is not a digital effect, but actually a ‘sheet’ of cascading water.