“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.”[1]

“He Weeps for You” (1976)…installation at the Hamburger Banhof Museum in Berlin, 2007

“One of the first video installations by Bill Viola, closely related to his videotape productions of the 1970s. A drop of water emerging from a small brass valve is magnified by a video camera and projected on a large screen. The close-up image reveals that the viewer and part of the room where they stand are visible inside each forming drop. The drop swells and shudders as it reaches surface tension, finally falling and creating a loud resonant sound as it lands on an amplified drum below. A new drop immediately begins forming and the cycle continues in infinite repetition.” [2]

[1] Bill Viola, (exhibition catalog), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988, p.29
[2] http://www.mediaartnet.org/works/he-weeps-for-you/