To see images of Bill Viola's work, click on the slideshow.

A pioneering and widely revered video artist, Viola remains one of the most innovative practitioners of filmic art. His retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, “Bill Viola: Liber Insularum,” curated by Roc Laseca, will run from December 5 through March 3, 2013. Many of the works shown were made since the artist’s last retrospective in 1997, at the Whitney Museum. Viola spoke with Daniel Kunitz about the role of writing in his work, how he responds to technology, and the price of popularity.

DK: What are you working on now?

BV: After working in the desert and other outdoor locations, I am planning to go back into my studio, where I’ll be making more intimate pieces based on several years of writing in my notebooks. It is writing, not drawing, that is usually the primary way my work emerges into the world, because it is the movement within the image, not its fixed form, that most emulates the life field in which we all coexist.

DK: Do you write every day?

BV: Not as much as I used to. These days I take a pocket-size book with me when I am out and write up anything of interest when I get home. In my practice I have three kinds of books that I use. One is my general notebook, which I use like a journal, writing about anything I might encounter — my research, my family, how I’m feeling, something I’ve seen, random thoughts, quotes from what I am reading. Then I create a project book, which is a unique notebook specifically geared to a new series I’m planning to make, including concepts and details of the ideas.

The final element in my creative process is when I start a production book, where I write up all the technical notes of how, when, and where. At this stage there’s discussion with my production team, and we solve the technical problems. I decide on which pieces to make with the help of my partner, executive director, and producer, Kira Perov. This is how the cycle goes, and it’s all based on writing.

DK: And yet words don’t appear in your work.

BV: Well, they are there in some works, such as Slowly Turning Narrative from 1992, but you’re right. This is most likely because I have a mild form of dysgraphia. Due to the way my brain is wired, it forces me to look at a text as if it were an image. I was born with this. I feel that it is a large part of the reason why I do the kind of work I do, and how I do it. It’s painstaking to have to write something out — you get to be a very slow writer, and especially a slow reader.

DK: I wonder if that slowness accounts for the lucidity of your writing.

BV: Probably that’s part of it. When I was really young, I would just stare at things — the weave of the fabric on the couch, the ceiling at night, a tiny crack in my headboard. It just becomes a world, you know? It’s all flowing and moving. It was like water coming by constantly, and I’d see things in it. That’s how I’ve experienced the world for most of my life. I have no words for these things.

DK: The majority of pieces in the exhibition at MoCA North Miami were made after your Whitney retrospective in 1997. What did you learn about yourself and your work from looking back on it then?

BV: The Whitney exhibition was a survey of my work that was created over the course of 25 years. Most of the pieces were room-size installations, and I could now feel confident that I had mastered this medium. I began looking at expressing my ideas in a more intimate format. What made this possible were the new developments in video screen technologies in the late 1990s. Flat screens were approaching photographic quality in terms of resolution and detail, and the color palette was achieving greater clarity and depth. My focus was changing at the same time as new formats were being invented and becoming more versatile. In the exhibition at MoCA North Miami, you can see the results of my expanding palette. The range of scale of the pieces is greater too — if you compare, for example, a work such as The Messenger [1996], also a room-size projected piece, with Observance [2002], a vertical 50-inch plasma piece that is mounted on a wall.

Regarding the retrospective glance: As an artist who has been looking at his self-image in the electronic mirror for most of his life, I’m very concerned about the pitfalls of self-reflection. I think it can trap you and drag you into an endless loop. Because I have a very large inner world, I live very much inside myself. And within my being are very deep places that I don’t want to disturb, let alone decipher. I love Werner Herzog’s statement about psychoanalysis — “A fully illuminated room is not worth living in.”