Deep TV: Bill Viola's via negativa. From: Artforum International | Date: May 1, 1995| Author: Kustpit, Donald | COPYRIGHT 1995 Artforum International Magazine, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Video artist Bill Viola attempted to render the mystical qualities of space in his work 'Deserts.' Viola uses multiple images shot in Death Valley, CA, that are merged together at increasing speeds to create an ambiguous or amorphous image. Viola's working principle for the video is the feeling of 'via negativa' which is a quest for the unknowable and that which is lost from cognition.

The desert is a place of solitude, purification, and initiatin. Paradoxical, it seems catastrophi...