Original subtitles

For well over a decade, the renowned video artist Bill Viola

has worked relentlessly on a unique commission

for St Paul's Cathedral in London -

to create on either side of the High Altar

a permanent video installation depicting Mary,

the mother of Christ, and the Christian martyrs.

Throughout that time, the film-maker Gerry Fox

was there to document Viola's journey from beginning to end.

This month, London's Royal Academy has chosen to display 12 video

installations by Viola alongside works by the great Renaissance

artist Michelangelo, primarily drawings loaned

from the Royal Collection.

As a young man, Viola was heavily influenced by the father

of video art, Nam June Paik.

In the early '70s, Viola lived and worked in Florence,

the home of Renaissance art.

He was there as the technical director

of a cutting-edge video studio.

But over time, the themes and imagery of those Renaissance

artists began to play an increasing part in his own work.

Bill Viola is one of the pioneers of video art.

And really experimented with the medium, got under its skin,

tried to understand its properties, its dimensions, and transformed it.

Was part of the generation that really brought it

into the mainstream of contemporary practice.

For example, we find behind us a piece that depicts a man

and a woman in old age scrutinising their bodies

as if they try to understand perhaps where their youth has gone

or try to read the folds in their skin like the rings of a tree.

They are clearly towards the end of their life.

It's an elderly man and woman and the images are projected

onto black granite.

It really is a very moving, symbolic representation

of our passage through life.

As you know, I've been really involved in looking at late medieval

early Renaissance art and that's a huge part of my awakening,

really, because when I was younger

I didn't want to pay any attention to that at all.

That was of no interest to me.

I had video, it was new, it was on the way,

it was some brand-new way of making images,

and that's where I wanted to be as a young artist.

And it took me a long time, it was really until my mother's death,

really, I think, that turned that around for me and I began

to look at these images which these people had been creating.

THUNDERING

I'd always thought as long as I had known Bill's works

how close an affinity and relationship there was between

Bill's work and Michelangelo's, and we have in the Royal Collection

one of the great groups of Michelangelo's finished drawings.

And I showed them to Bill. He didn't really know them.

He knew them by reputation but didn't know the works before.

And he was awestruck by them.

They are the most extraordinary things, and in the flesh

they have a power that no reproduction can convey.

And from that moment we started talking about the idea of a possible

exhibition of Bill's works in relationship to Michelangelo's.

The expression of grief is one of the most profound.

I'm looking at it without the glass, without anything, six inches away,

and seeing every little detail of what this amazing hand created.

The representation is so striking that to me this whole room

is just vibrating with emotions.

The first thing I did was think of this piece.

It was immediately just the most important thing.

I'm saying we do need to have the image of death

in this room as well because it's so clear here.

Bill featured his dying mother in this triptych.

In February '91 his mother passed away and it was a kind

of a really shocking thing because it was unexpected,

an aneurysm, but for three months she was lying in a coma,

and so that was an incredibly difficult thing to have to live

through when you are watching someone dying, basically.

Yes, this was a very, very critical moment.

BELL TOLLS

Bill, thank you for coming across.

I think the whole notion of doing something with the martyrs and Mary

is for me the most extraordinary opportunity to bring

in some universal principles.

And you've picked up all the resonances that we were feeling after.

I saw Bill's exhibition at the National Gallery,

The Passions, a year or two back.

And I suddenly realised what would happen to people

who are visitors to St Paul's if they were confronted

by a multi-panel display.

Because if you have a painting, you stop for 15 seconds and you pass on,

but Bill's works, it seems to me, which is in a contemporary idiom,

actually asks that you stop and you engage with it,

and I think it may yet prove to be an art form which requires

a greater degree of involvement than the more traditional forms.

We are a Christian cathedral.

Right. And of course for us these two locations wrap themselves

around the High Altar. Right.

With all the connotations of death and resurrection which we find

in the Christian story. Absolutely. So that's also important.

Yeah, I mean, Christianity, basically, in a very fundamental way,

and I don't want to be too simplistic here, it's the story

of a birth and a death.

I mean, that's really the essence of it all.

It's about life, death and life. Yes, that's true.

If I may. Yes. The never-ending cycle.

That's right. And rebirth.

And I think that kind of connection which connects the gods,

which always seemed beyond people at that moment,

became all of a sudden one of us and became connected to us.

10, 20 years back, there were small chapels

in these two places dedicated to Mary and to modern martyrs,

and for all kinds of reasons, before I was here as Dean,

those two chapels were set on one side.

But it did seem to me that there was a connection

between Mary on the one side and modern martyrs on the other.

Maybe for some kind of picture, or...?

They may or may not have done because you see we've got these rectangular panels.

They are inviting, aren't they?

Absolutely. They are saying, "Come on give me a video artist." Or something like that. Yes.

"We want a video artist."

THEY LAUGH

I'm sure Wren had that in mind when he was designing the thing.

I think he may have had. There you are.

There is this inset into the wall and obviously

someone had intended...

HE SCREAMS

I had the absolute incredible experience as a young artist right

out of art school, and all of a sudden there is this incredible

human being, Nam June Paik, who is really taking this medium

and making it do crazy kinds of things.

It was just really, really powerful.

And there was three of us were doing this together with Nam June.

Where it all comes together very interestingly for Bill

is Nam June Paik's TV garden,

and one of the people helping to install

that work at the Everson Art Museum in Syracuse, New York was

Bill Viola because he was at Syracuse University as a student

and was discovering, through that place, this medium

and the possibilities that resided there.

He just inspired me so deeply and that set me on my career

and just shot me out like in a cannon.

You know those guys in the circus that just shoot out in the cannon?

It was kind of like that.

This period when he was at Syracuse University,

this is where he was transformed.

Bill, in his very first tapes,

in formation, broke the representational

image on the screen, had the sound push

what you could see

on the monitor and created a radical, abstract work.

So, right from that beginning, he was really wanting to use

this medium as a new form of expression.

Try to stay in a line, OK?

OK, I'm going to go to the far stake.

In 2011, six years after receiving the commission,

Bill Viola finally began filming in earnest on the story of Mary

for the St Paul's project.

That's great.

We've got to get rid of that, obviously.

But those hills are fantastic.

And look how dark the oaks are.

There's real texture.

Look out here, everybody.

Look at the amount of colour that's in that hill right there.

Most people would look at it and just say, "Oh, it's a dead field," but look at it.

I mean, besides the movement in the grass right now,

look at all the browns and there's even some purple out there,

green, multiple shades of green.

It's really, really extraordinary.

Is there any sort of a rig that the camera could be facing

back and you could have a monitor forward? No.

I think that would be really a great thing,

wouldn't it? That would be a great thing.

The external world for me is just a kind of backdrop,

and that's fine, and I think the physical world has a very

special role to play in the cosmos, certainly, but I feel that the human

soul, basically the software, is really where I want to be with my

camera, whatever that is.

We were able to get Alessia, our Mary, to come down the hill.

Look at the ground.

Camera get ready. Go.

And, in the course of that simple walk down a hill,

to completely transfigure herself.

OK. Now come round to camera, all the way in.

She's kind of tired, yeah, but she's actually become,

it's actually you've gotten stronger in a way. Yeah.

And you had these experiences along the way. It is mixed.

And now you've become stronger because of those experiences

that happened to you than when she started, you're stronger.

Yes. It feels very natural.

Yeah, it does. Beautiful!

They're both touching each other's tummies, just to show the viewers

that they recognise that they're both pregnant.

And then after that moment feels itself out,

I will take her hand. And I will... This one...

You're the passive one, remember.

Yeah. Because you just came and it's like you're still...

I am not active but emotional.

Perfect, yes. That's great. OK.

And she's the one that's helping you to arrive, you know?

Really helping your cousin, you know, your little cousin.

Bill Viola tackled the meeting of Mary and her cousin Elizabeth

once before, in 1995 in The Greeting.

WHISPERING

Further left.

OK, that's it, straight.

Go left, Alessia.

A little left.

I need to slow down Alessia a little bit more. OK.

And I think the camera needs to stop when they stop. Yeah.

Alessia, stay to the right. Stay to the right, Alessia.

Maybe look down.

Let's keep it moving.

OK, bring her close.

We're going to set up a series of marks, guys, for Gabriel.

Cos Gabriel has the longest single approach and that's got

to be dead on.

The Crucifixion is an important icon, basically,

in the Christian tradition, certainly.

It is the notion of suffering.

There is Mary Magdalen according to Grunewald.

So this is her ointment jar. What she does is anoints the feet

of Jesus, and the thing that Grunewald does which is so phenomenal, that I love,

and I saw you kind of doing it, I'm just pointing it out

to you again, is the hands, Grunewald's hands are so expressive

and they are unusually expressive.

Grunewald was one of the greatest painters in the history of art.

He just had this incredible depth to him and he was fearless.

So I have these three people that are just waiting

for this moment when the person they love the most will die.

So the vigil at the cross is that, it's about that waiting.

There is nothing like this image that we are seeing right now

of the setting sun in the Salton Sea.

It is just magnificent.

I've been coming here for most of my adult life.

Every single time I come here it's not just a little different,

it's vastly different.

I think these kind of very special places,

here in the Salton Sea, the Mojave Desert, Death Valley,

these incredible places that we have in America,

really are, traditionally, those are the places where people

came to understand themselves, to go deeper

and deeper, not into life but into the cosmos in general,

which is even beyond life.

A little bird came up. How cute.

I remember when my mother passed away, I looked right

at her when she took her last breath. And yes,

it was sad, yes, it was unacceptable,

but in the end there was a deeper depth in there that went to a place

I would say was beautiful,

not in a cosmetic way again but in a real inner way,

and I'll never forget that gift.

That was the last gift she gave to me, actually,

to teach me that beauty and death and life and art are all connected.

You can find beauty in the birth of a child.

But you can also find beauty in death.

I've been working with death for many, many years

because I had a near-drowning experience that almost killed me

when I was six years old.

HEAVY BREATHING

We are just here for the ride, from enter stage left,

exit at stage right, and that's it.

I saw this beautiful light coming from under the water,

and so I just went into it by myself.

No-one told me to do it.

And it just took me.

It was really, really powerful, and I kept going that way,

you know, go down, down, down, instead of up.

And then...

HE LAUGHS

..you know, I should have drowned.

I should have drowned for, like, this much time

and I would have been gone.

And there would be no Bill Viola, all of those movies...the things

that we've done.

You just feel like you want to go back to that place and you want

to go back to it and go back to it, and that's why

all of the water comes in my work.

That's where it actually happens.

At that one point, and then every single time like that,

every time I've seen water, I have to have water.

This work is always dear to my heart.

It has to do with dreams.

I think the dream state is one of the most important things

in human existence.

WAVES ROAR

SCREAMING

These are the archetypes of human culture.

These are the great, great stories of humanity.

And that's something that I think artists have always tried to deal

with in their work.

I did it in my own way.

THUNDERING

Five Angels for the Millennium, for example, for me, is a deeply

spiritual piece but it's also a piece that has to do

with resurrection and rebirth.

We're going to put rubble over this so it'll just blend in.

OK, that's great. You've got to spread those out.

Hey, Blake, that's got to be spread out,

you need more over there.

Separate those a little bit.

OK, that's good.

That's good.

Right now, we're standing here in the third scene

of the Crucifixion.

It is the scene of Mary

finally having some time with her dead son,

just the two of them alone.

That is known as the Pieta, and it's a very moving image

of a mother who has just lost a child.

That's your son, Alessia.

That's your boy.

You nursed him when he was a child.

You gave life to him.

That's lovely, that's beautiful.

The journey that we're on right now,

I'll let you start it, you can just go into it. Yeah.

OK, and I'll watch you...

And the first take, it can be good,

it can be just a warm-up, we don't know. Yeah, yeah, OK.

What do you think about those two? They're too symmetrical. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know, let me have a look.

You know, Mick just said that this is not precise.

When we decided to stage the pieta here and I realised that,

yes, of course, it's about this destructive force,

and it's about the ability for human beings

and for the environment itself

and for God to regrow that, re-bring it into the world,

to continue to give it meaning.

OK, Alessia, leave your hand there.

You can do it now.

He's giving you strength, and you can do it.

Three, two, one, cut.

So, thinking about the right-hand panel,

which deals with death,

and basically transcendence, as well,

people who realise that the way to realise their faith

is to leave their bodies, literally.

So I had this image of people suffering,

but at the same time being liberated from their suffering.

I don't know what that'll lead to.

I saw water, I saw people caked in mud, in my mind,

and the mud was being washed off by the water.

So I just have to sit with that.

That's what, I'm in a receptive mode now,

and that's a very precious thing for me, and it's very delicate,

cos if the ways of the world get too involved,

and too distracting, you can lose the thread.

It's about being quiet and being empty, really.

I'm beginning to feel a grounding here,

which I need to establish,

and I do that whether it's in a magnificent cathedral like this,

or in Durham, where I did the piece just about ten years ago.

The work needs to feel grounded

in the place that it's in.

Well, we have been working for 28 years together,

and usually I come in on it a little bit after Bill's

developed the ideas, and then we discuss the ideas

and then figure out how to do them.

HE LAUGHS

What? I forgot...

How long have we been doing this? 35 years? You didn't write it down?

No, I didn't write it down. OK, we'll do it again.

Wait, no, hold on, wait... Let's do this one first.

Kira's role is really essential. She does let me have my space, which is necessary,

but when I feel myself sort of emerging from the creative cloud

and things are starting to get more concrete enough

that I can really describe them very carefully...

It's the last bit. Can you put your hand here?

In a minute. You... OK, then we'll take from this.

Let's get one thing at a time.

VOICEOVER: Start to make some sketches

about what it might look like, or notes,

then very often I'll ask Kira at a certain point to come in.

Sometimes she'll just push her way into the door

and say, "You've been there long enough,"

and we'll, and I'll start to... Deadlines, deadlines!

I'll start to describe to her some of the ideas,

and it is very essential for me to have a kind of

a reflective sounding board in someone who I'm so in love with

and connected with. It's very, very special.

Well, we're here in Venice, in the Church of San Gallo,

which is a very small family chapel

from the early 15th century.

It's quite a special place,

it's a very intimate kind of space,

and it has in it most notably three large stone altars.

And then I was looking at the space,

and realised that I could make something that incorporated

the actual architecture of the church into my work.

For me, what helped me tremendously here was to realise

that these altars are not solid, opaque objects.

These are actually portals,

and that's how these altars are used,

that's why they have such tremendous power, really,

for connecting with human beings in the most intimate level.

It's precisely because they are made of stone,

which is one of our most eternal materials.

They are absolutely translucent and transparent,

and you can literally journey into them

and go where you need to go inside yourself.

That connection, I think, having worked on this piece now,

has been very important, and it's going to be really essential

for taking on the St Paul's project.

What you're seeing right here

is a person walking through a wall of water,

and during that transition, the image itself transforms

from this old, grainy, security camera image, circa 1970s,

to the latest contemporary movie-quality camera.

What qualifications I have to do a piece like this,

which has the theme of the dead coming back to life,

was really my experience with both my mother in 1991,

and my father in 1999,

to be at the bedside, holding their hands when they left their bodies.

And if you've witnessed someone die,

you literally feel something leaves their body,

and there is a moment when their body just becomes

a material vacuum, a container.

They spend some time with us on our side,

in our world, in the physical world, the material world,

and then, at a certain point, they realise they have to go back.

And, you know, some don't want to, some do,

but they all must turn, and they all must leave us and go back,

and it's quite strong when someone turns their back on you, you know?

It's a very clear decision.

A few of them hesitate, but in the end they all go back.

And here we are in St Paul's,

in this incredible place.

And for the first time seeing these mock-ups in situ,

which is going to be very close to how the piece is going to look.

Every time you move, it's a different thing.

I know. It's true.

Can we see the larger screens?

I know you don't have the same image on that.

I just wanted to see what the larger screens look like.

Can we do that? I'm going to centre it, yeah?

OK. Fairly light kind of screens...

That's too big, I think.

Yeah, it interacts much more intense than... Yeah.

I think we should try the smaller screens again

and have a look from here. Absolutely.

Yeah, let's do that. Yeah.

The Mary piece is about the Earth, it's about fertility,

it's about the feminine principle.

That must be in contact with the ground somewhere,

with this floor, with this building.

And that's really important. So it's going to have a plinth

at the bottom, a pedestal, and it will hold the screens.

The martyrs are the inverse of that.

The martyrs are on their way not to Earth but heaven.

Well, the whole notion of martyrdom is that you've accepted your fate.

And that you are sacrificing yourself for some higher good

or for some ideal that you have inside.

And we're meeting these four people on these screens

at a time when they've already accepted it.

You have John Hay, who is the water person.

And he's left for dead

and then he's hoisted up, actually.

There we go.

And he's literally hoisted upside down with his arms out.

Hold that. Hold that.

And it's the position that St Peter was crucified in.

It's one of the most painful ways in the Roman empire to kill someone.

And so he's upside down, arms out,

like a piece of meat hanging down,

and then slowly again he kind of wakes up again,

sees where he is, and then he gathers that strength again.

And then this water comes down on him, pours on him,

and buffets him, he's moved around and stuff like that,

and then finally he gets the strength

and then he breaks through and he ascends.

Start turning off the water, little by little.

His whole body actually comes up and goes right up out of frame,

and then you just see drops after that

at the end, until little drips happen and then it's gone,

he's gone. And that's the first one.

The second one is wind, the wind,

and that's done by Sarah.

And she's battling the wind, that's her protagonist.

Very slow.

The wind happens and it gets stronger and stronger.

And then there's this tussle again

and then she breaks through that.

She sees where she is.

She knows she can do this.

She knows that she can continue.

A little bit more. Bring it up a little bit more.

Don't let her spin.

The fire work is really intense.

We are trying to gather together multiple takes from different angles

so that we can bring together multiple things in the same frame.

Looks really, really good. And the colours are going to

just really bounce off that shirt.

Yeah, cos then that's...

Then I die.

And I go up in smoke.

It's a black thing!

He wakes up and he realises, like,

he's in a really bad situation

with fire around him, ready to burn him alive.

And then so he has to come out of his cocoon and really begin

to fight back so he gets the strength, miraculously,

to get to that point. He breaks through that

and then you begin to see light at the end of the tunnel

and things start calming down, and all of a sudden then

he can look upward, outward,

and feel that he finally broke through.

And he's, quote unquote, "seen the light".

FIRE CRACKLES

And then there's the earth.

The earth. The earth is, of course, the Earth itself,

and that's an image of a person who's underground,

who's got dirt on them and stuff, and is trying to find the way out.

You can put your arms down, Norman.

OK, now you're slowly going to come down.

Take it down.

However you want to land.

I can go way faster than this. OK, let's go faster.

It's really about the earth,

and I've never done anything with earth before.

This is a new element for me, which is kind of exciting.

How much dirt was that, Giuliano?

That was, like, eight bags total.

And then, of course, the idea of possibly running it backwards,

of course, came into my mind and also Kira, too,

and we discussed it and stuff.

So that was the starting point,

that we were going to turn this thing around,

like we often do, and when I get stuck in general,

I just do what my art professor told me many years ago.

He said, "Bill, if you get stuck, just do it backwards."

Dirt is your protagonist. Right.

And you're trying to...

..get him away. Right?

Oh, I am? Oh, no, wait, sorry.

I think I might be doing this wrong.

Yeah, we're going backwards. OK.

So, yes, so we're going the other way. Right.

Even this backwards thing, I use that a lot

and I can't tell you how many times it's like, I go,

"Now, was it this backwards or that backwards?"

Exactly. Yeah.

Oh, geez, I don't know now.

They're both very beautiful, the forward and the backwards.

Oh, no, this is the piece. You can't...

You have to go backwards. I know, I know.

You can't go forwards!

All the dirt starts rising, you know?

It's like the Creation, you know,

coming out from all the materials in nature

is now getting condensed into this thing, and it's ascending now.

This idea of this incredible ascension, this uplifting,

this up-moving energy that in the ultimate sense in the end

is not a physical thing at all.

It's a metaphysical thing.

And that's, of course, where my work is really connected.

Cos right now, I'm coming in from an angle. Oh, that's right.

So if I sweep it all the way round the other end,

you'll get more of a straight drop.

Because when it falls right over the edge,

it literally falls right over that edge.

Bravo.

Are you OK? Yeah.

Did you get some, a little bit?

It's more that I was surprised, it's more dusty.

It looked great. It's exactly, this amount of dirt was really...

It's good? It's just what I was thinking, yeah.

But it wasn't painful or anything, right?

All of these pieces in these elements series

that we're doing right now, they're all about those elements

that need to be confronted with something, with the protagonists,

and then that's got to be battled with in our own way

and then we've got to find a place ourselves to break through.

I'm experiencing this thing

which is not really crushing me, it's saving me. Right.

And it's there.

Right.

Cos you start really looking up, when we first see you.

I'm starting... You're starting at the end. Right.

I'm starting at the end, in a place...

You're starting at the liberation.

..in a place of exultation, or... Exactly. Yes, right.

..and freedom. Yes. Right.

And it's a collapse. Yeah.

And you're being folded in from all sides, like this.

One of the pieces I'm really excited about is an image of

two elderly people on two slabs of granite seven feet high.

They literally are being projected on that granite.

They slowly pick up little flashlights that they've been

holding at their side, and they take those flashlights and then they

go up every part of their body.

So basically what they're both doing is they're checking

for something that could kill them, basically.

Whether it be cancer or whatever.

What it is is they are looking at a mirror and we are the mirror.

So it's like it's in your bathroom, let's say,

and you're just looking at the mirror,

to just see the parts that you don't normally see.

They're really creating a kind of ritualistic way

of looking at their body.

And at the very, very end,

their bodies seem to be getting thinner and more gaunt

and then gradually, they look at us and this pixelated grain

that's like a shimmering thing envelops their body.

So these are, in my mind, the kind of pixels of the cosmos

that we will all turn into, we all will go from dust to dust.

Hitting maximum!

Let's just look at this. We just need to...

No, we... No, this is wrong.

If he goes down too slowly, which is what just happened,

all the dirt piles up and there's no dirt going on his back.

You should tell him that directly. I'm not going to tell him anything.

I just want to... No, you have to. He doesn't know not to...

He's now, in my opinion, he's mugging.

And just, you know,

I don't think it's not necessary

to look up and do all this kind of thing. OK.

But I think it's just...

..a matter of just feeling the dirt.

Ten seconds to end of dirt.

Heavy sifting begin.

Cut.

APPLAUSE

Are you OK, Norman? Yeah. Yeah.

You pulled your leg in appropriately, that was...

Right. Good. Fantastic. That was a nice take.

That was a really nice take.

Come down there. Bring it down there, please.

This is the best one we've had.

This image of this...

Yeah, is that... That's really, really great.

Wow.

Can you see that?

It's really stunning.

This means you're happy?

It's the first time I've seen it, yeah.

Yeah.

It was...

Where it's going...

I'm sorry.

HUBBUB

CHORAL MUSIC

This is it. I know.

After all these years.

I can't believe we're actually in the building.

Yeah, exactly.

But there's little things popping up across from those panels.

It is very effective, I must say.

And the light is spectacular.

Wow!

I think after you.

THEY LAUGH

Hello. Hi. It's good to see you.

Wow. This is amazing. It is.

Sorry. No, I'm exactly the same!

Exactly the same.

It's an exceptionally powerful piece.

Kira did so much work for this. Yeah.

It's unbelievable what she did. Kira...

Directed it! Thank you.

The whole idea of this is that you're not looking at

a physical thing, you are inside these people's minds,

and that's what they're experiencing.

I'm looking forward to seeing it from a distance.

That's the one thing, isn't it? Yeah.

I just want to actually reverse back.

And here I am in this amazing cathedral.

I'm going to cry right now, I think.

Sorry. But it's just overwhelming.

It's really overwhelming to see faith and intensity and technology,

and all of these things that human beings work with, you know?

And when you put those together, you get something that is larger

and greater than the whole.

When's the second one coming?

Oh, Madam Mary is on the way.

Is she? She's on the way. Oh, I'm so glad.

Well, that won't be until next year. No, no, of course not.

Eight years since I retired.

But it's here. All things come when they're ready.

And Mary's on her way, I'm told.

Yes, we've done a lot of shooting with Mary.

To bring a work of this quality into this great cathedral

adds a dimension, I think, to the cathedral,

but it also adds a dimension to the work.

You are immediately reminded of all the great works of art

that have dealt with those themes, and you think of yourself

in the great cathedrals of Europe.

I walked right the way down the aisle, and from back there,

it's quite sensational. You won't have seen it yet.

You went all the way in the back to see it?

It was phenomenal. I haven't done that yet.

I think the view there...

It's the balance between the backlight

from the windows and this, it's totally different.

Right. It just sinks into the wall.

The piece is timeless. Yes. Thank you.

Well, here I am at the Grand Palais, and this is an extraordinary place.

It's the biggest thing that was ever made at that time.

I mean, it's phenomenal.

The artist? Oh! It's so nice to meet you. How are you?

I'm good, dear. How about you?

Very good. You're here again?

Yeah, it's always better to see it twice.

People here were really great.

It was a lot of work for them, because we demanded a lot.

DOG BARKS

HE GASPS

WATER FLOWS, PEOPLE SCREAM

INSECTS CHIRP

OK, so this is my study where I live, in a way,

through art.

And so many of these things are so meaningful for me, really.

I mean, it's really...

This is really my deep, deep centre of my life, right here.

And of course, most people don't know that you're doing something...

Most people are up here, and they just think they're

doing this here and this there.

And in the meantime, there's a place right in your gut

that you don't really know you even have.

I mean, that's not even...

You know, it's just...

And you don't realise that.

All of these things that I've done over the years

have all come through me, obviously.

It's like a kind of a river. It's kind of this moving river.

So all of those things come into you in a very complicated way.

All of this stuff is... I'm touching all of these people,

all these Sufi masters, and all sorts of stuff is happening

all in this place, this whole area right here.

Bill had always had an idea to do a predella.

What was the predella that you used?

Oh...

Catherine...

Catherine's Room.

Yeah, but it was Catherine's Room, by Catherine of Siena.

There was an icon of her, and then on the bottom,

I think it was five panels... Yes. ..of Catherine of Siena praying

in different praying positions, which was kind of interesting,

but there were different times of day and different activities

that showed different parts of her life.

This could be different, because we had the kind of shape

of the altar, in a way.

I especially love that red sky. Yeah.

And this is...

This is really coming together.

Here is the predella section.

So on these shots, I got rid of all of the dropouts

from the video tape.

But you've still got some of the crumbiness, which is good.

And then this is death right here.

So we're dissolving through here, and now we're out,

and the camera kind of backs up.

Oh! I see. And starts to retrace.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I got you.

The last bit of the thorns are really great.

Yes. You can see them really...

I mean, see what I have happening here. OK.

This is exciting.

We are home! There it is.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Wow. It's spectacular. Look.

That is going to be incredible.

Yeah.

Whoa.

It is so beautiful.

In this context, oh, my God.

Wow.

The whole thing simmers.

Yeah, it's like moving, connected, comes back, and then goes again

one more time.

It took a long, long, long, long time

to actually get these things connected,

and do it in a certain way, and so that was...

Now to come back here, and come back into St Paul's,

and see what's happening, and...

It's just overwhelming. It is...

Kira and I are just beside ourselves for what we did,

and I don't know what to even say.

I can't even say it.

It's just... It's just the feeling.

It's about feelings, and, you know, what is that?

Why are we here?

Why are we all here?

That's what it is, you know?

So that will go on when I'm long...

All of us will be not here any more.

So that's a really amazing thing.

ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS

APPLAUSE

Mary and the Martyrs are permanently on display in St Paul's Cathedral.

The exhibition at the Royal Academy continues until the 31st of March.