for A Jan Svankmayer filmography/videography page, please click here!Svankmayer definetely influenced many others like Tim Burton. Brothers Quay took his ideas much further and even dedicated "The Cabinet of Jan Svankmayer" to him.
Brothers Quay
Identical twins born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Stephen and Timothy Quay studied at the Philadelphia College of Art until they transferred to London's Royal College of Art, where they started producing animated shorts in the early 70s.
The Quay's films are influenced by those of Jan Svankmajer: a harsh, grimy world where decay is the primary decor, but they add a sharp neo-gothic edge to and maintain a thoroughly personal hand-on approach to their film-making, where Svankmajer designs his films and lets others animate them. Not only their materails and political ideas are striking, but also their editing techniques: the rythym created by the movement of the camera. The Quay's puppets are also of the same ilk (creepy antiquated-looking toys, bones, meat, etc.), but have a more polished look. The Quay's plots are minimal and dark, their films surreal, stream-of-consciousness nightmares with a definite edge of humor.
Some of the Quay's actual sets and puppets are on permanent exhibition at The Museum of the Moving Image in London.
Since they don't want their images on web, we cannot include any. Yet, for the filmography you can click here.
Bill Viola
Born in January 25, 1951, he is today known for his work in video art. His exhibition profile, which includes the Guggenheim Berlin, Guggenheim New York, Getty Los Angeles, California, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York marks him as a major artist, at least by standards of public fame and repute. His work has also received extensive critical praise from both within the video art community and in the culture at large, which is unusual for an artist whose work often challenges the narrative conventions of the television screen.
His early work established his fascination with issues that continue to inform his work today. In particular, Viola's obession with capturing the essence of emotion through recording of its extreme display began at least as early as his 1976 work, "The Space Between the Teeth", a video of himself screaming, and continues to this day with such works as the 45-second "Silent Mountain" (2001), which shows two actors in states of anguish.
If Viola's depictions of emotional states with no objective correlative -- emotional states for which the viewer has no external object or event to understand them by -- are one striking feature of many of his works, another, which has come to the forefront, is his reference to medieval and classical depictions of emotion. Most immediately, his subdued "Catherine's Room" 2001, has many scene by scene parallels with Andrea di Bartolo's 1393 "St. Catherine of Siena Praying".
While many video artists have been quick to adopt new technologies to their medium, Viola relies little, if at all, on computer editing and modification of his video. Perhaps the most technically challenging part of his work -- and that which has benefitted most from the advances since his earliest pieces -- is his use of extreme slow motion. "The Quintet Series" 2000 is one such piece (actually a set of four separate videos), that shows the unfolding expressions of the five actors in such slow motion that the expressions become almost unrecognizable. The series is a challenging one for the viewer, because the concentration required to follow the facial expressions over time must last for minutes or more. In general, the distortion of time, along with the lack of sound or voice over, form the most immediately ""new"" aspects of Viola's work for the first-time viewer.
One remarkable piece by Viola is his "Observance" 2002, which may be taken partly as a response to the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. "Observance" places the camera at eye level facing the head of a line of people of a wide variety of ages. As "Observance" unfolds, the line slowly advances, with each person pausing at the front of the line in a state of intense -- though quiet -- grief, before ceding their place to the next person in line.
In 2004, Viola embarked on "The Tristan Project". At the invitation of opera director Peter Sellars, he created video sequences to be shown as a backdrop to the action on stage during the performance (directed by Sellars) of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde. Using his trademark extreme slow motion, Viola's pieces used actors to portray the metaphorical story behind Wagner's story, seeing for example the first act as an extended ritual of purification in which the characters disrobe and wash themselves before finally plunging headlong into water together (in Wagner's story, the two characters maintain the facade of being indifferent to each other (necessary because Isolde is betrothed to Tristan's uncle) before, mistakenly believing they are going to die anyway, they reveal their true feelings). Viola trademarks such as fire and water are much in evidence here. The piece was first performed in Los Angeles at Disney Hall on 3 separate evenings in 2004, one act at a time, then given complete performances at the Bastille Opera in Paris in April and November 2005. The video pieces were later shown in London without Wagner's music in June to September 2006, at the Haunch of Venison Gallery and St Olave's College.
Viola's work has received many critical accolades. Marjorie Perloff, best known for her poetry criticism and her promotion of avant-garde writers and styles, singles him out for praise. Perloff, who has written at length about the necessity of poetic works responding to and taking advantage of contemporary computer technologies, has written of Viola as an example of how new technology -- in his case, the video camera -- can create entirely new aesthetic criteria and possibilities that did not exist in previous incarnations of the genre -- in this case, theater.
For Bill Viola's official web site, please click here!
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