Migration - Bill Viola 
1976, 7 min, color, sound
   
Migration is an analysis of an image, a metaphorical exercise in perception and representation, illusion and reality, microcosm and macrocosm, nature and consciousness. Viola writes that this work is "a slow continuous journey through changes in scale, punctuated by the sounding of a gong.

[The piece] concerns the nature of the detail of an image. In visual terms, this is known as 'acuity' and is related to the number of photoreceptors on a given surface area of the retina. In television terms, detail is referred to as `resolution,' and is a measure of the number of picture elements in a given horizontal or vertical direction of the video frame. Reality, unlike the image on the retina or on the television tube, is infinitely resolvable -- `resolution' and `acuity' are properties only of images. The piece evolves into an exploration of the optical properties of a drop of water, revealing in it an image of the individual and a suggestion of the transient nature of the world he possesses within."

Produced in association with Synapse Video Center, Syracuse University.

www.eai.org/eai/tape.jsp?itemID=3317

Joseph Beuys, Strassenbahnhaltestelle / Tramstop / fermata del Tram, 1961-1976,
A Monument to the Future, im deutschen Pavillon in Venedig, Biennale 1976,
ⓒVG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 1998

[http://www.museenkoeln.de/ausstellungen/msc_9701_beuys/b_03.htm]