The Sleepers

Since the early 1970s, Bill Viola has created video installations that explore degrees of human consciousness, the body, and time. His video installation The Sleepers consists of seven metal barrels filled with water. At the bottom of each barrel, a monitor plays a 30-minute video loop of a different person’s sleeping face seen in close-up, filmed in real time. Only the light of the black and white monitors fills the exhibition space, producing a peaceful, inviting blue glow, and a dream-like atmosphere conducive to meditation. As viewers witness the sometimes fitful, sometimes peaceful sleep of these strangers—including one entering his “final sleep”—they are confronted with a familiar yet troubling image, and invited to contemplate their own fragility and finiteness.

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