Bill Viola (*1951 in New York, lives in Long Beach / USA) is considered one of the most influential figures in video art. His precise works are evidence of an intense engagement with musical structures, an interest that has led him to collaborate with avant-garde composers like John Cage. His videos, installations, sound environments, and performances play with perceptual and temporal experiences, unsettling the viewer by means of techniques like expansion or shortening. They thematize basic experiences of human existence such as birth, death, and awakening to consciousness in relation to Eastern and Western spiritual traditions.