tamborim.

Bill Viola, He Weeps for You
(video and sound instalation, 1976)
Frenoys, Abril de 2010


In a large, darkened space, a copper pipe runs down from the ceiling, terminating in a small valve from which a single drop of water is slowly emerging. A color video camera, fitted with a special lens and a bellows attachment used for extreme close-up magnification, is focused in on this drop. The camera is connected to a video projector that displays the swelling drop of water on a large screen in the rear of the space. The optical properties of the water drop cause it to act like a fish-eye lens, revealing an image of the room and those within it. The drop grows in size gradually, swelling in surface tension, untill it fills the screen. Suddenly it falls out of the picture and a loud resonant "boom" is heard as it lands on an amplified drum. Then, in an endless cycle of repetition, a new drop begins to emerge and again fill the screen.

Catalogue Bill Viola, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988, p.29