{"id":731,"date":"2012-01-30T14:14:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T22:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/artwork\/the-tristan-project\/"},"modified":"2021-01-01T23:10:32","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T07:10:32","slug":"the-tristan-project","status":"publish","type":"artwork","link":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/artwork\/the-tristan-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tristan Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-731-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/youtube\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XLfxvb7LRCI&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XLfxvb7LRCI&#038;feature=player_embedded\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XLfxvb7LRCI&#038;feature=player_embedded<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-731-2\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/youtube\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jm51KjcRwdY&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jm51KjcRwdY&#038;feature=player_embedded\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jm51KjcRwdY&#038;feature=player_embedded<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-731-3\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/youtube\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m5LLx8IgRIc&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;_=3\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m5LLx8IgRIc&#038;feature=player_embedded\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m5LLx8IgRIc&#038;feature=player_embedded<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, Bill Viola was asked to create a video production for Tristan &#13;<br \/>\nun Isolde, being put on by Peter Sellers and Esa-Pekka Salonen, &#13;<br \/>\npremiering in Los Angeles. His video was going to create a backdrop for &#13;<br \/>\nthe opera, which took place all around the audience in the theater. <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fall540.jpg\" width=\"540\" height=\"408\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For those not familiar with the story of Tristan and Isolde, it &#13;<br \/>\ngoes like this. Tristan is a Cornish knight sent to Ireland to bring &#13;<br \/>\nback the Princess Isolde (sometimes spelled Iseult) for his uncle King &#13;<br \/>\nMark to marry. Along the way the couple injests a love potion, causing &#13;<br \/>\nthem to fall madly in love. Though Isolde marries Mark when they return &#13;<br \/>\nto England, she and Tristan carry on the affair in secret, driven by the&#13;<br \/>\n love potion. The court often tries to accuse them of adultery, but the &#13;<br \/>\ncouple are never caught. King Mark finally hears of the relationship and&#13;<br \/>\n sentences the couple to death. Tristan rescues Isolde and they run away&#13;<br \/>\n and hide, only to be discovered by Mark. Tristan agrees to give up &#13;<br \/>\nIsolde and runs away, marrying Isolde of the White Hands, because of her&#13;<br \/>\n name. The endings of the tale vary on who is telling it. In one &#13;<br \/>\nversion,  Tristan is attacked by Mark with a poison lance and killed. &#13;<br \/>\nAnd in yet another, Tristan is struck by a poison lance while rescuing &#13;<br \/>\nsix maidens from a group of knights. He tells his wife&#8217;s brother to sail&#13;<br \/>\n back to Cornwall and retrieve Isolde, his first love, and to fly white &#13;<br \/>\nsails if she will return and heal him. However his jealous wife switches&#13;<br \/>\n the sails to black and Tristan dies of grief thinking Isolde has &#13;<br \/>\nbetrayed him. <\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lamps540.jpg\" width=\"540\" height=\"406\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bill Viola&#8217;s specialty is slowing down time, manipulating the time flow of his video pieces. He wants you to see the seconds within a second, to let the viewer dwell in the emotion of that moment. By coordinating these slow, symbolic sequences with music, we get a powerful wave of emotion and symbolism. The video displays scenes from the opera using symbology. Tristan walks through a wall of fire and the embers stick to his chest like dozens of little stars. A galaxy. Yet another scene shows the couple cleansing theselves, an act of purification before they plunge into a pool together, hands clasped. In death, Viola created a sequence called &#8216;ascention&#8217;, in which Tristan lies on a stone slab, seemingly underwater, and light and water rise from his body like backwards rain until he has dissolved entirely. Viola&#8217;s trademarks of fire and water are heavily used here. Viola was inspired by the essential nature of myth \u2014 &#8220;the &#13;<br \/>\ndrama of human beings in context with and engaging the natural forces, &#13;<br \/>\nthe cosmic forces.&#8221; (NPR). <\/p>\n<p>Interesting Fact: When Viola was first given the music to the production by Sellars, the artist couldn&#8217;t get past the first scene. Overwhelmed by the music, he thought he couldn&#8217;t do it, and shelved the project for a week.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Behind the Scenes:<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-731-4\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/youtube\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AJYN4gSwaaw&#038;_=4\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AJYN4gSwaaw\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AJYN4gSwaaw<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sources of information:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bill_Viola#Video_Art_Projects<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=9506273<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.icartists.co.uk\/projects\/tristan-project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":5482,"template":"","artist":[173],"streams":[8,2],"keywords":[3995,3996,3994],"decade":[5544],"media":[5550,5546],"class_list":["post-731","artwork","type-artwork","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","artist-bill-viola","streams-charged-environments","streams-motion-duration-illumination","keywords-bill-viola","keywords-the-tristan-project","keywords-tristan-un-isolde","decade-2000s","media-installation","media-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artwork"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5496,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artwork\/731\/revisions\/5496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"streams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/streams?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keywords?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decade?post=731"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artelectronicmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}