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Media on the stage or stage for the media? The example of Bill Viola's The Passions.
Patrice Pavis
After a few general remarks on the use of media on the stage, I shall consider the example of Bill Viola's The Passions. I shall examine the intermedial use of painting, video, theatre, tableau vivant. The use of slow motion, as a means of changing and challenging the sitter's perception, will be analysed: between the different expressions of the emotions, there is no longer a sharp break, but a "morphing effect". I will investigate how the viewer is affected by the use of codified emotions, how s/he is disconnected from and reconnected with his own body and body sensations. Thus the pathos and sublimity of the scene, particularly in biblical motifs, is given a new shape and communicated "haptically", kinesthetically. The slow motion picture reveals what could not be perceived at normal speed and in the usual mode of representation. The intermediality is also an interdisciplinarity which restructures the usual distinction of genres and the specific perception proper to each art. The spectator is given the illusion of seeing her emotion from outside, as a foreign body unfolding in front of her. Beyond the immobility of painting, she perceives another reality through a modified state of consciousness and a "new" body. The morphing effect gives her an impression of the Marvellous, Miraculous, Uncanny, Mystical. One of the denials and interdicts of painting, movement, is put into question and another type of narrative emerges which disrupts our usual, daily, historical perception. Everyone seems to believe that the painting and the emotions are moving for them alone, as if drawn by their own body. Silence, slowness, concentration, unspoken thoughts suggest a new approach to reality.
The discussion raises the question of whether Viola thus re-evaluates the use of media in different arts such as painting, cinema, video, poetry, theatre. What is he trying to do? What is he doing?
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