Viola's use of expression is paramount to his work. He uses emotional facial expressions to, inevitably, evoke reactions from the viewers. His videos tend to be slowed, so that each tiny change in the subject's face or body is noticed by the viewer, as each change, however small, when time is slowed becomes a large change.
Viola's works tend to start off calm and still, particularly in Quintet of the Unseen, 2000. The emotions of the subjects grows until they consume the artwork. The expressions are uninhibited and, although the subjects are actors, and therefore the expressions are being acted, they look real and not forced, so that it seems as thought the viewer is experiencing fresh, pure emotion.
I want the faces in my work, the subject's faces that are hidden behind the mask, to have an emotional expression relevant to the sociologically formed expectation of the role of the opposite gender. For example, If the subject was to be female, then I would want them to have an emotional expression linked to sociologically formed masculinity; a powerful, aggressive, dominant expression.
I wouldn't want the expressions and emotions to be as prominent in my work as they are in Viola's, as they are just part of the work whereas in Viola's videos, they are a very large part of the work. I do think, however, that expression is relevant to my current photographic work.
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