Six Heads

Bill Viola is one of the most well known successful video artists. I found one of his exhibits, The Passions, had three videos which i thought were interesting. One of which being, Six Heads. The work was done on a plasma display mounted on a wall roughly 40 inches by 24 inches. There were six different squares on the screen three rows and two columns with the same actors head in all of them. Throughout the film the man is making different emotions with his face in each square, all the while the camera is at a close-up of his face.

Viola was went through a hard time when is mother passed away and his child was born. During this time he had many different emotions running through him. After a few years he recollected to this and decided to portray all humans emotions. In Six Heads he has an actor portray the faces of anger, joy, sorrow, fear, awe and finally a dream-like state. Bill Viola said "We are comprised of many selves, with many faces." He was taken by the idea that all of these emotions coexist inside a person and can make them act completely differently.

Six Heads really made me think about my own emotions, also on the emotions of those around. I know some people who are upset a lot and I see them making the faces of anger or fear. The same goes for all of the faces. I feel as if he is trying to get others to let their emotions go. He has one person displayed six times simultaneously with different expressions on each face, showing all the emotions he goes through. I also thought it was interesting that he chose a man for this video. In today's culture men aren't usually considered to be emotional, yet he chose a man to be in the video. So far, this is my favorite work by Bill Viola.

Bibliography

"Six Heads." Bill Viola: The Passions. The J Paul Getty Museum, 2003. Web. 8 Mar. 2010 <http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/viola/art.html>