Steina

(See also Steina and Woody Vasulka, Woody Vasulka)

Since the mid-1970s, Steina has explored intricate transformations of vision,space and sound, through a dynamic confluence of digital technologies, mech-anical devices and natural landscape . After producing a pioneering body ofwork with Woody Vasulka in the early 1970s, Steina has pursued several dis-tinct inquiries in her more recent videotapes and installations ; the electronicinterrelation of sound and image; the use of mechanized, pre-programmed im-age devices for phenomenological explorations of perception, space, and modesof seeing ; and the textural fusion of digital and "real" imagery and sound tocreate layered spatial and temporal systems . In many of her works, the natur-al landscape of the American Southwest is integral visual material . In 1975,Steina began Machine Vision, a series of tapes and installations for which shedevised mechanical systems with programmed functions - optical, motorizedor rotating devices that include spherical mirrors, prisms, and cameras withlens mobility . Used with her signature electronic manipulation and landscapeimagery, these devices resulted in exhilarating redefinitions of physical andrepresentational space . In richly textured works such as Voice Windows (1986)and Lilith (1987), Steina manipulates digital and camera-generated images,"real" and altered sound with haunting effect, constructing dense layers andmultiple perspectives that fuse the natural world and technology in space andtime .

Steina was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1940 . She studied at the MusicConservatory in Prague, 1959-63, and emigrated to the United States in 1965.With Woody Vasulka, she has won numerous awards ; their collaborative workshave been widely exhibited internationally (see Steina and Woody Vasulka) .Exhibitions of her individual works have been seen at festivals and institutionsincluding Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris ; The Kitchen, New York; Museumof Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh ; The Jonson Gallery, University of NewMexico Art Museum, Albuquerque ; and the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt Biennial, New York, among many others . Steina lives in Santa Fe, NewMexico.

Violin Power

Steina : Selected Works

Violin Powerby Steina .1970-78, 10:04 min, b&w, sound.

Steina terms this procedural work "ademo tape on how to play video on the violin ."Her background as a violinist and her evolu-tion from musician to visual artist is refer-enced through an analogy of video camera tomusical instrument . Steina is first seen in foot-age from the early 1970s, playing the violinand singing to The Beatles' Let It Be. As suc-ceeding segments trace a chronological pro-gression, Steina layers imagery and time . Theviolin itself ultimately becomes an image-generating tool, as she connects it to imagingdevices, creating abstract visual transpositionsof sounds and vibrations . This unconventionalself-portrait is a study of the relationship ofmusic to electronic image.

Steina: Selected Worksby Steina .

Bad1979, 2:14 min.Urban Episodes1980, 8:50 min. Optical Instrumentation:JosefKrames. Produced by KTCA-TV,Minneapolis .Summer Salt1982,18:48 min. (Sky High 2:42 min;Low Ride 2:59 min; Somersault5:14 min; Rest 2:16 min; PhotographicMemory 5:10 min.)

Total program: 1979-82, 29:52 min, color,sound.

Steina's works from the late 1970s andearly 1980s are exercises in the phenomenol-ogy of vision and the redefinition of space andlandscape, as articulated through mechanized,optical and electronic devices. Bad is a tech-nical exploration of several commands in theVasulkas' Buffer Oriented Digital Device, whichcontrols digital imaging functions such as up/down and right/left movement, as well as the

Bad

stretching and squeezing of the image. Steinauses her own face as visual material, rhythmi-cally dismantling and reconstructing her self-image. Urban Episodes is a striking phenomenological study in an urban landscape, an exhil-arating restructuring of physical space that de-fies expected modes of seeing and the laws ofgravity and reflection . In a public plaza inMinneapolis, Steina set up a motorized, ro-tating Machine Vision device, which includesmirrors and two cameras that pan, tilt andzoom . Summer Salt is a dramatic explorationof the phenomenology of space and vision, asSteina uses mechanical and electronic devicesto physically investigate the Southwesternlandscape. This artificial vision allows theviewer altered perceptions and spatial perspec-tives. The five segments include dynamic exer-cises with Steina's mirrored globe, the physi-cality of unexpected camera placement, andelectronic manipulation of the textures andcolors of the landscape.

Selected Treecutsby Steina .1980, 8:11 min, color, sound.

Selected Treecuts is a formal examina-tion of the distinction between camera-generat-ed and digital images, and a layered juxtaposition of contrasting representations of reality .The methodology of the tape is simple : a zoomlens moves slowly in and out on a group oftrees, alternating between digitized and cam-era-generated, "real" images . The movementin the tape is produced by the automated zoomlens and rotating prism; the images switchrhythmically between camera images and digi-tal images held briefly in computer memory,The contrast between the "real" camera imagesof trees and the frozen, digital computer im-ages forms an essay in motion and stillness, theorganic and the synthetic, tracing a trajectoryfrom the photographic to the electronic .

Lilith

Cantaloupby Steina in cooperation with Jeffrey Schierand Woody Vasulka. Aproduction of the TVLab at WNET/Thirteen .1980, 27:54 min, b&w and color, sound.

Cantaloup is an informal documentaryon the Vasulkas' Digital Image Articulator, asophisticated imaging device they designedwith Jeffrey Schier . Using a cantaloup and thethree artist/designers as image material, Steinaexplains the capabilities of the machine, in-cluding its real-time imaging ability and thearticulation of images in a digital code . Shedescribes the varying sizes of pixels (pictureelements), the layers (or slices) of color andtone that can be derived from one image, andtechniques such as "grabbing" the image andmultiplying it. This document offers a highlyinformative, spontaneous demonstration of acomplex imaging device .

Voice Windowsby Steina in collaboration with Joan La Bar-bara . Music: Joan La Barbara.1986, 8:10 min, color, stereo sound.

Sound, as visually manifested throughelectronic imaging, becomes a spatial compo-nent in this exquisitely rendered confluenceof landscape, music and digital manipulation .Singer/composer Joan La Barbara performs aseries of voice chants and intonations, creatingenergized patterns on a grid of horizontal linesthat recalls a musical scale. This animated linepattern, vibrating and dancing to the energygenerated by La Barbara's voice, is inscribedonto moving imagery of the Southwest land-scape . Through electronic imaging, the ener-gized patterns themselves act as "windows"that reveal yet another layer of landscapeimagery, creating intricate fields of illusoryspatial transformations .

Selected Treecuts

Cantaloup

Voice Windows

Lilith

Summer Salt

Lilithby Steina in collaboration with Doris Cross.1987, 9:12 min, color, stereo sound.

In Lilith - a name that evokes biblicaland mystical references -Steina alters andmanipulates the face of a woman (painter DorisCross) so that it is submerged within a naturaland technological landscape. Employing theimaging techniques of focal plane shift (alter-ing the depth of field) and frame "grabbing"(a succession of frozen images), she creates aconstantly shifting visual field in which an im-age appears to exist in a constant flux of temp-oral and spatial planes . The woman's electron-ically distorted speech adds a further hauntingdimension to this almost sculptural fusion ofhuman figure and landscape.

Steina and Woody Vasulka

(See also Steina, Woody Vasulka)

Steina and Woody Vasulka are major figures in video history, technical pio-neers who have contributed enormously to the evolution of the medium andwho continue to be important practitioners of video as art. The Vasulkas' tech-nological investigations into analog and digital processes and their develop-ment of electronic imaging tools, which began in the early 1970s, place themamong the primary architects of an expressive electronic vocabulary of image-making. Applying an informal, real-time spontaneity to their formalist, oftendidactic technical research, they chart the evolving formulation of a grammarand syntax of electronic imaging as they articulate a processual dialogue be-tween artist and technology . The Vasulkas' early collaborative efforts, pro-duced from 1970 to 1974, include phenomenological explorations that decon-struct the materiality of the electronic signal and analyze the imaging capabili-ties of video tools . Central to these increasingly complex exercises are explora-tions of the malleability of the image, the manipulation of electronic energy,and the interrelation of sound and image. In the mid-1970s, working with suchengineer/designers as Eric Siegel, George Brown, Steve Rutt and Bill Etra, theVasulkas developed electronic tools specifically for use by artists. With JeffreySchier they developed the Digital Image Articulator, a device that allows thedigital processing of video imagery in real time . Steina's training as a violinist,and Woody Vasulka's background as an engineer and filmmaker, informedtheir invention of electronic devices to transform sound, image, space and time-themes that they have pursued independently in their later works. Thoughthe Vasulkas continue to collaborate, since 1975 they have produced much oftheir work individually .

The Vasulkas emigrated to the United States in 1965, and began theircollaborative exploration of electronic media in 1969 . In 1971, they co-foundedThe Kitchen, a major alternative exhibition and media arts center in New York .From 1973 to 1979, the Vasulkas lived and worked in Buffalo, New York,where they were faculty members at the Center for Media Study, State Univer-sity of New York. The Vasulkas have received numerous awards for their workin the media arts, including grants and fellowships from the National Endow-ment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Corporationfor Public Broadcasting. In 1989, they received a United States/Japan ExchangeFellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts . The Vasulkas havebroadcast and exhibited their collaborative works extensively throughout theUnited States, Europe and Japan, at institutions including The Institute of Con-temporary Art, Boston ; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse ; Institute of Contem-porary Art, Philadelphia ; Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; and The Museum ofModern Art, New York, among many others . Steina and Woody Vasulka live inSanta Fe, New Mexico .

Home

Golden Voyage

Homeby Steina and Woody Vasulka . Dual Colorizer :Eric Siegel . Video Sequencer/Video Keyer :George Brown . Line-locked Strobe : Steve Butt.1973, 16:47 min, color, sound .

Home is an early experiment in whichthe Vasulkas transform ordinary householdobjects through analog imaging devices . Withhumor and a sense of spontaneous discovery,they animate everyday objects through the ap-plication of electronic effects which serve as aprimer of early imaging techniques : horizontaldrift of layered image planes, colorizing, key-ing . Apples, shoes, bottles, teapots come to lifein surreal tableaux that suggest psychedelicMagritte paintings, as the Vasulkas transformstill lifes through the inner dynamic of elec-tronic image processing .

Golden Voyageby Steina and Woody Vasulka . 6 Input Keyer-MixerlGen-Lock System : George Brown . DualColorizer: Eric Siegel .1973, 27:36 min, color, sound .

In this early work, an electronic hom-age to Magritte, the Vasulkas demonstrate fun-damental imaging techniques . Inspired byMagritte's painting The Golden Legend, thisexercise employs a three-camera set-up, withimages layered through a multikeyer, to createthe illusion of objects moving through spatialplanes . Loaves of French bread embark on asurreal video journey through electronic land-scapes, finally arriving in an abstract space.The spectacle of the animated loaves adds aplayful spontaneity to this early articulationof illusory space and three-dimensionalityin video .

189

Steina and Woody Vasulka

(See also Steina, Woody Vasulka)

Steina and Woody Vasulka : Selected Works Iby Steina and Woody Vasulka.

Solo For 34 :15 min. ProgrammerlMultikeyerlH.D .Variable Clock: George Brown. DualColorizer : Eric Siegel.Reminiscence4 :48 min. Scan Processor: Rutt/Etra. Col-orizer: Eric Siegel .Soundgated Images9:22 min. ProgrammerlMultikeyer/H.D.Variable Clock: George Brown . Wave-form Generators : Steven Hutt . Scan Pro-cessor : RuttlEtra . Dual Colorizer : EricSiegel .Noisefields12:05 min. SequencerlMultikeyer:George Brown. Dual Colorizer : EricSiegel .

Total program : 1974, 30:30 min, color, sound.This program presents the Vasulkas' ear-

ly formal experimentations with analog imageprocessing and their investigations of multiplecamera set-ups and keyers to articulate spatial,temporal and sound/image manipulation . SoloFor 3 is a didactic yet playful exercise in whichthree cameras were trained on three differentimages of the number three . Image planes arelayered, arranged and sequenced; the result isa multifaceted choreography of numbers . Remi-niscence is an otherworldly record of a Porta-pak walk through a farmhouse in Moravia, thesite of Woody Vasulka's youth, as seen throughthe transformative effects of the Rutt/Etra ScanProcessor. Images become eerily sculptural,fading in and out of abstraction, as if in evoca-tion of memory . Soundgated Images is an earlyexample of the Vasulkas' ongoing explorationsof interfacing modes of simultaneously gener-ated sound and image, in which abstract, pro-cessed images are transposed as electronicsounds . Noisefields is an important exampleof these early experiments, a visualization ofthe materiality of the electronic signal and itsenergy . Colorized video noise (or snow) iskeyed through a circle, producing a rich staticsound that is modulated by the energy contentof the video.

Steina and Woody Vasulka: Selected Works ISteina and Woody Vasulka: Selected Works IIProgenyIn Search of the Castle

In the Land of the Elevator Girls

Steina and Woody Vasulka : SelectedWorks IIby Steina and Woody Vasulka.

Heraldic View4:21 min. Multikeyer : George Brown.Waveform Generators : Steven Butt . DualColorizer: Eric Siegel.1-2-3-47:46 min. Programmer/Multikeyer/H.D.Variable Clock: George Brown. DualColorizer: Eric Siegel.Soundsize4:40 min. Scan Processor : RuttlEtra .Telc5:10 min. Scan Processor: Rutt/Etro .Colorizer: Eric Siegel.

Total program : 1974, 21 :57 min, color, sound.Here the Vasulkas continue to develop

the imaging potential of artist-designed elec-tronic devices, as they formally analyze anddeconstruct the inherent materiality of video.In Heraldic View, an oscillator-generated pat-tern drifts over a camera image of bricks andstone, the patterns modulated by sharp burstsof voltage generated by an audio synthesizer .

1-2-3-4 is an exercise in animating numbers,using four cameras and a multikeyer to reor-der and layer the image planes . Soundsize con-tinues the Vasulkas' investigation into the rela-tionship of sound and image. Here a pattern ofdots is modulated by sounds generated from asynthesizer, changing size and shape in a visu-al manifestation of electronic sound. In Telc,a Rutt/Etra Scan Processor is used to trans-form portapak images from a trip to a town inSouthern Bohemia. Like faded memories, im-ages of the landscape and people are sculptedand abstracted, as the energy of the image istranslated into electronic scan lines.

Progeny and In Search of the Castleby Steina and Woody Vasulka.

Progeny18:28 min . In collaboration with Brad-ford Smith.In Search of the Castle9:29 min.

Total program : 1981, 27:57 min, color, sound.In these two works, the Vasulkas em-

ploy imaging tools to transform physical spaceand alter perception . Progeny is a collaborationwith sculptor Bradford Smith. Smith's organicand sensual sculptural forms are transformedby the merging of one of Steina's MachineVision devices - a rotating, mirrored spherewith pre-programmed camera movements and

In Search of the Castle

optical transpositions - with Woody's digitalprocessing . In Search of the Castle is a journeyof personal, perceptual and technical transfor-mations. Driving from a city through Southwestern landscapes, taping through Steina'smirrored globe, the Vasulkas develop the cen-tral metaphor of a search. This work traces theirodyssey from naturalistic to increasingly com-plex, image-processed landscapes, until theyarrive at an abstract electronic environment,a synthetic space transformed by technology .

In the Land of the Elevator Girlsby Steina and Woody Vasulka. Assistance :Hirofumi Mora, Japan-United States Friend-ship Commission . Produced by IMATC0/ATANOR for Television Espanola S.A . El Artedel Video.1989, 4 min, color, stereo sound.

In the Land ofthe Elevator Girls usesthe elevator as a metaphorical vehicle to revealan outsider's gaze into contemporary Japaneseculture . The continual opening and closing ofelevator doors serves as a succinct formal de-vice, as the viewer is offered brief glimpses ofa series of landscapes -natural, urban, cultur-al and domestic . Doors open onto doors to re-veal layers of public and private vision, trans-porting the viewer from theatrical perform-ances and street scenes to an elevator surveil-lance camera's recording of everyday life .

In the Land of the Elevator Girls

Woody Vasulka

(See also Steina, Steina and Woody Vasulka)

Since the mid-1970s, Woody Vasulka's work has focused on a rich articulationof the syntactical potential of electronic imaging. After producing a pioneeringbody of tapes in collaboration with Steina in the early 1970s, he has since un-dertaken a sophisticated exploration of the narrative and metaphorical mean-ing of technological images . Vasulka's development of an expressive image-language has evolved from a rigorous deconstruction of the materiality of theelectronic signal, through experiments with new technologies of digital manip-ulation, to the application of these imaging codes to narrative strategies . Theremarkable culmination of this investigation, Art ofMemory (1987), is one ofthe major works in video. In this lushly textured, haunting essay, Vasulka ap-plies a highly evolved imaging grammar to a metaphorical discourse of collec-tive memory, history, and the meaning of recorded images - envisioned asa spectacular memory-theater inscribed upon the landscape of the AmericanSouthwest . In his early investigations of the vocabulary of such devices as theDigital Image Articulator, Vasulka emphasized the dialogue between artist andmachine, as manifested in real-time creativity and process-oriented experimen-tation . Through digital manipulation, he continues to explore the malleabilityand objectification of the electronic image as a means of rendering a complexinventory of rhetorical devices. With the fantastical "electronic opera" TheCommission (1983), Vasulka began to apply these codes to the developmentof narrative and metaphorical strategies, an inquiry that has dominated hislater work .

Vasulka was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1937. He studied at theSchool of Industrial Engineering in Brno and the Academy of Performing ArtsFaculty of Film and Television in Prague . With Steina, he has won numerousawards and grants ; their collaborative works have been exhibited international-ly (see Steina and Woody Vasulka), His individual works have been shown innumerous exhibitions, at festivals and institutions including the InternationalCenter of Photography, New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions(LACE) ; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh ; and the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art Biennial, New York. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico .

Woody Vasulka: Selected Works

The Commission

Woody Vasulka: Selected Worksby Woody Vasulka .

Vocabulary1973, 4:17 min, stereo sound . Multikey-er: George Brown . Scan Processor: RuttlEtra . Dual Colorizer : Eric Siegel .The Matter1974, 3:56 min, sound . Scan Processor:RuttlEtra . Multikeyer: George Brown .C-Trend1974, 9:03 min, stereo sound . Multikey-erlH.D. Variable Clock : George Brown .Scan Processor: RuttlEtra . Dual Coloriz-er: Eric Siegel .Explanation1974, 11 :45 min, sound. Multikeyer:George Brown . Dual Colorizer: EricSiegel . Scan Processor: RuttlEtra .

Total program: 1973-74, 29 :01 min, color,mono and stereo sound.

This program of early works includesdidactic explanations of Vasulka's image-ma-king tools, and also charts his development ofa grammar of these imaging techniques . Vocab-ularyis "designed to convey in a didactic formthe basic energy laws in electronic imaging."Here a hand, as a metaphor for expression andgesture, and a sphere that symbolizes form, areprocessed with a keyer, colorizer and scan pro-cessor . The Matter, C-Trend, and Explanationare methodical, didactic works that decon-struct the essential elements of electronic im-aging and then attempt to construct a syntaxfrom those elements . In The Matter, a generat-ed dot pattern is re-sculpted into myriad three-dimensional forms and shapes by waveforms,which also generate sound. In C-Trend, a viewof traffic shot from a window is transformedand sculpted into permutations of abstract,three-dimensional forms. Explanation is a com-puter-generated cross-hatch of lines that be-comes three-dimensional, defining shapes in asynthetic landscape of gradually shifting imageposition and size .

Art ofMemory

Artifactsby Woody Vasulka.1980, 21:20 min, b8w and color, sound .

Artifacts is a didactic demonstration ofthe syntax and vocabulary of the digital image,via the electronic capabilities of the Digital Im-age Articulator . Vasulka's intent is to createa dialogue, a symbiotic relationship betweenartist and machine. "By artifacts," he states,"I mean that I have to share the creative pro-cess with the machine. It is responsible fortoo many elements in this work. These imagescome to you as they came to me - in a spiritof exploration." Initiated by basic algorithmi-cal procedures, the images coalesce to form anoverall conception of the electronic vocabularymade possible by this technology . Vasulkaworks with a spherical shape and, in an ironicreference to the "hand of the artist," studies hishand as transformed by the Imager .

The Commissionby Woody Vasulka. Camera: Steina . With : Rob-ert Ashley, Ernest Gusella, Cosimo Corsano,Ben Harris, Andrea Harris, David Ossman. SetDesign : Bradford Smith. Editor: Peter Kirby.Audio Mix: Baird Banner. Vocoder : HaraldBode . Scan Processor: RuttlEtra . Digital Articu-lator: Jeffrey Schier.1983, 44:55 min, color, stereo sound.

Applying his electronic imaging codesto narrative in The Commission, Vasulka de-velops a metaphorical image language to en-vision an epic electronic opera. The text,which is based on the relationship of violinistNiccolo Paganini (played by video artist ErnestGusella) and composer Hector Berlioz (compo-ser/performer Robert Ashley), confronts mythsof Romanticism, history and art-making . Con-structing a fantastic video theater, Vasulkastages a narrative of transformation, an intri-cately crafted blend of figuration and abstrac-tion, in which imaging techniques serve asexpressive visual syntax . Specific video effectsare assigned interpretive meaning; reframedimages proliferate within images in re-compo-sitions that propel the narrative progression .The Commission is a pivotal work in the artic-ulation of narrative strategies through an elec-tronic image language .

Artifacts

The Commission

Art of Memory

Art of Memoryby Woody Vasulka: With : Daniel Nagrin,Klein . Voices : Doris Cross . Videotools : RuttlEtro, Jeffrey Schier . Collaboration : BradfordSmith, Penelope Place, Steina, David Aubrey.1987, 36 min, color, stereo sound.

Art of Memory is one of the major worksin video, an astonishingly original and maturearticulation of Vasulka's inquiry into themeaning of recorded images . Constructing ahaunted theater of memory from a spectacle offilmic and electronic images, Vasulka collapsesand transforms collective memory and historyin an enigmatic space and time . The monu-mental landscape of the American Southwestis the mythic site onto which he inscribesnewsreel footage of war-ghostly imagesthat become malleable, sculptural formsthrough constant electronic transmutations .In this metaphorical vision, the recorded imagebecomes a monument to the past ; history be-comes cultural memory through photographyand cinema . Vasulka locates the trauma of20th-century history in filmic images of violentevents, including the Spanish Civil War, theRussian Revolution, World War II and theadvent of the nuclear bomb . Presided over bya winged creature of conscience, history andmemory are seen to be manipulated by thehistory and memory of images . In a breathtak-ing conjoinment of the apparatuses of war,history and the media, Vasulka achieves apoignant, ultimately tragic memory theater .