Abstract

In this text we intend to analyze Bill Viola’s video installation Nantes Triptych (1992) as an example of the richness which lies in the liminal spaces between arts. We defend the thesis that the utilization of the traditional pictorial structure of the triptych in this particular work, along with the powerful audiovisual material, renders a kairological event available to the viewer. This temporal experience makes possible an existential experience when in front of this video installation. To discuss this assumption we will use classical art theory texts about the triptychs, as well as, among others, Deleuze’s texts about time image and the triptych structure, Agamben’s concept of kairos, the concept of kairological artwork coined by David Chan and the philosophy of temporality developed by Merleau-Ponty.

Highlights

  • A thought is a function of time, not a discrete object

  • The wings are occluded by liminal concepts as only birth and death can be; in consequence, when contemplating Viola’s video installation, we tend to return time after time to these mysterious figures, which seem to be sometimes floating, sometimes drowning

  • By analysing the different dimensions that are simultaneously operating on it, we have defined three different layers which configure the specifics of the encounter with this video installation

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Summary

Introduction

A thought is a function of time, not a discrete object. It is a process of unfoldment, an evolving thread of the living moment. I took out the camera and I made very few video recordings, a couple of days when she was about, I’d say, maybe three weeks before the end and a very short little session a week before the end and the last image, which is at the very end of Nantes Triptych, where you’re in close up on the face and you don’t see the light in the eyes anymore”

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