Bill Viola's Emergence, 2002.

Plot of the Video:

My initial interpretation of Bill Viola's work Emergence is a video which takes the viewer into an experience of raw human emotion. The video extends over 12 minutes where for that period of time emotions such a love, loss, hurt, utter shock and hope are exposed. Within the video Bill Viola captures these emotions through an experience like no other. It can be interpreted that the two women, possibly a mother and lover were waiting by a coffin of some form grieving over the loss of a loved one. When suddenly, a porcelain white body up rises out of the water within the coffin with an angelic like appearance, not only surprising the two women but leaving them in complete shock. Once he has been risen out of the water as far as his body would take him he then suddenly falls to the ground to be caught by the elderly women. Before the body arose out of the coffin you could see that the two women where clearly grieving over the loss of the loved one. They appeared as though all faith and any hope they had within there body had been lost. When suddenly the body appeared there faces showed a mixed of shock, surprise and hope. Hope in the sense that maybe there loved one had returned to them. Once the body falls to the ground again, appearing lifeless, this hope is once again lost. And the overwhelming pain struck the two women. In my opinion, the water could some-what resemble a womb of a mother. A womb which resembles the life line to the body, and when he up rises it is almost like birth all over again. Like the angelic creature is given a rebirth and the two women are waiting for this day.