“The so-called video image is actually a shimmering energy pattern of electrons vibrating in time. The fabric of the image needs to be in a constant state of motion in order to exist, a modern embodiment of Buddha’s dictum that ‘all existence is change.’ The electronic image is not fixed to any material base and, like our DNA, it has become a code that can circulate freely to any container that will hold it, defying death as it travels at the speed of light.” – Bill Viola

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Life & Death,” an exhibition of works produced over four decades by pioneering video artists Dara Birnbaum, Peter Campus, Frank Gillette and Bill Viola, and curated by MFA Art Practice Department Chair David A. Ross. Ross notes in his curatorial statement, “the exhibition is an attempt to distill a central metaphor found in four very different works, each dealing in its own way with issues of transcendence and mortality.”