Elena Del Rio, Techno-Ecologies of Bill Viola and Gilbert Simondon: The Birth of Form – Edinburgh University Press, November 2025

Jointly explores Bill Viola’s video art and Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation through their shared understanding of the interpenetration of nature and technology

• Expands the study of Viola’s art beyond aesthetics and beyond representation
• Situates Viola’s aesthetic practice in relation to Simondon’s theory of individuation, and his philosophy of nature and technology
• Emphasises the dimension of Viola as technical innovator – the artist-technician
• Provides a thorough analysis of 18 major Viola works and discusses the cinematic significance of his art
• Makes Simondon’s philosophy accessible by reference to the specific analysis of Viola’s art

Both Viola and Simondon prioritise a techno-aesthetic experience that reveals a consistent pattern of interdependence between form and matter, nature and culture, human and nonhuman. Inspired by Simondon’s ideas on individuation as process, and by other major figures of process philosophy such as Raymond Ruyer, Deleuze and Guattari, and Brian Massumi, Elena del Río delves deep into Viola’s art and finds a politics of nature that is also a politics of the affects. In taking full account of the interrelation between collective affects and living milieus, this politics exceeds the still anthropocentric project of a politics reductively focused on environmental degradation. 

The book works with a broad concept of ecology that encompasses a nature-culture continuum – from Simondon’s associated milieu to Guattari’s tripartite ecological praxis, from Deleuze and Guattari’s existential territories to Massumi’s affective events. Attending to this nature-culture continuum and activating our collective energies are prime strategies in tackling the overwhelming psycho-social and environmental crises we face.