Viola’s Passionate Interregnum: Performing the Chôra Space-in- Between

Abstract

The term “space-in-between” was first coined by Margaret Morse to supply the necessary vocabulary for the definition of the new phenomena of contemporary video installations as a space in motion and transformation. This paper intends to take up a step further in the same direction into the poetics, and the theory of the video installations of Bill Viola. Two concepts, mutually related to each other and phenomenally connected to Interregnum, will assist me in this research: the Platonic concept of chôra space, and the concept of imagination. With the help of Kristeva’s reading of the chôra, I hope also to address the interface between imagination and expression in the process of creation and living experience of video art. I hope to show how Viola’s contemporary video performances could contribute to reassessing the traditional paradigms of the Self.