Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 8:00 PM to 10:30 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles
Lightstruck is honored to present Bill Viola’s riveting, radically empathic consideration of animal consciousness and collective humanity, *I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like*. Structured in five parts, Viola’s 1986 feature-length video is a deeply felt, personal essay that privileges presence, observation, and emotional texture over didactic analysis, resulting in a powerful rumination on our relationship to animals and “the irreconcilable otherness of an intelligence ordered around a world we can share in body but not in mind.” (Viola) Viola’s journey in exploring these inner states of being and communion brilliantly avoids any claims to facile, rational comprehension and instead occupies a space of mystery, ambiguity, and fascination with the ultimate unknowability of the animal soul. Working largely beyond language or modes of conventional documentary, time also slows down in Viola’s video, creating a space of vivid contemplation. As his exploration goes deeper and further, it becomes increasingly an inward investigation for each of us, a meditation on shared humanity and enhanced self-awareness. Ultimately, *I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like*, as expressed by the title itself, is a philosophically rich consideration of the self as understood through the intelligent creatures around us, and the degree to which our comprehension of existence resists definition, allowing space for something more powerful, spiritual, and profound. ∆ program: *I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like* (1986) by Bill Viola, video, color, stereo sound, 89 minutes. Program by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano. Thanks to Kira Perov and Bill Viola Studio. Additional thanks to Astra Price. image © 1986 Bill Viola, I *Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like*