The Commission

The Commission

1983 · 45 min

This work is Woody's first entry into the narrative sphere, whereby the "story" is continually undermined with the aid of various anti-narrative strategies: In each of the eleven segments of this "electronic opera", different effects are used. Fascinated with the remarkable personality of infamous violinist Niccola Paganini and his complicated relationship to Hector Berlioz (played by artists Ernie Gusella and Robert Ashley, respectively), the author meditates over the intricacies of artistic geniality as connected not only with fame but also with the necessity of painful survival under the pressures of the art market.

Directed by Woody Vasulka · Written by Ernest Gusella

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Cast

Robert Ashley Hector Berlioz
Ernest Gusella Niccolo Paganini
Cosimo Corsano The Mortician
Ben Harris Paganini's Son
Andrea Harris The Voice
David Ossman The Narrator

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1-2-3-4

1-2-3-4 · 1974

This work shows paradoxical space relations in electonic depths, where the common space coordinates no longer apply and where the images become objects in space. The numerals on the cakes were captured by four cameras and then processed with the Multikeyer.

Homemade TV: The Electronic Image

Homemade TV: The Electronic Image · 1975

Homemade TV: The Electronic Image

A broadcast presentation of Steina and Woody Vasulka's experiments with the electronic image. Featuring a 15-minute "jam session" of improvised video feedback art.

Distant Activities

Distant Activities · 1972

Distant Activities

Real time development of a video feedback, processed and controlled through a video keyer. Sound results from video signals, interfaced with audio synthesizer.

C-Trend

C-Trend · 1974

Noisefields

Noisefields · 1974

This is an attempt to process abstract images without the use of camera. The central circle divides the creen into two parts that continually vibrate hypnotically and change colors to the accompanying rumbling of modulated sound.

Matrix II

Matrix II · 1974

MovieDocumentary

Matrix II explores the properties of images and sounds in the medium of video. Geometric shapes travel across a ‘matrix’ (grid) of cathode ray tube (CRT) screens. CRT televisions, which use manipulated electron beams to display images on a fluorescent screen, remained in widespread use until the early 2000s. The Vasulkas sought to test the limits of each monitor, creating a fluid motion resembling the behaviour of electronic signals. Matrix II is an early example of video art, which first developed in the late 1960s and 1970s as artists came into contact with new consumer technologies for capturing moving images.

Golden Voyage

Golden Voyage · 1973

The work is inspired by the surrealist René Magritte's unsettling painting La Legende doree, depicting French baguettes flitting in a window frame. Woody and Steina used a three-camera construction and through the use of horizontal deflection created objects migrating through a landscape. Maureen Turim called this work "a meta-discourse on painting and video".

Calligrams

Calligrams · 1970

A film by Steina and Woody Vasulka

Tissues

Tissues · 1970

In Studies cycle, abstract studies are assembled, which document the Vasulka's early work with electronic material. The visual aspect of Tissues is the work of Steina, whereas Woody engineered the sound.

Orbital Obsessions

Orbital Obsessions · 1977

Orbital Obsessions

MovieDocumentary

Documentation and experimentation in real time, "Orbital Obsessions" is an example of early video self-portraiture, eerie and calm in its radical implications for the medium. The Vasulkas were interested in the building of control systems for the manipulation of electronic signals, resulting in their collaborations with several designers and engineers. One such example was the Multi-Level Keyer, a tool designed in 1973 by George Brown at the request of the Vasulkas, who were interested in expanding their range of source imagery. Steina’s manipulation of the image through keying, layering, and the manual control of luminance is seen here.

Thierry

Thierry · 1970

One of the works assembled in the series Sketches. These early sketches, created not without the irony, examine ways of manipulating the video image. They indicate that the documentary trend in the Vasulkas' work was from the beginning mingled with free experimentation. These short tapes were modified from the early documentary tapes.

Interface

Interface · 1970

An Interface not only between two continually switched over images but also between documentary tape, imagery taken from "reality", and its transformation in the electronic sphere.

Voice Windows

Voice Windows · 1986

With Voice Windows (1986), Steina renews her efforts to generate a complex sound-image interface

Progeny

Progeny · 1981

Progeny is a collaboration with sculptor Bradford Smith. Smith's organic and sensual sculptural forms are transformed by the merging of one of Steina's Machine Vision devices — a rotating, mirrored sphere with pre-programmed camera movements and optical transpositions — with Woody's digital processing.

The Whaling Station

The Whaling Station · 1964

The Whaling Station

short documentary film on an Icelandic whaling station

Discs

In Discs, originally made as installation for a set of monitors, the creators experiment with the phenomenon of horizontal drift trhough the indtroduction of purposeful time error. The result is the repetitive abstract pattern of a distorted magnetic field. Furthermore, this horizontal stream also travels thorugh a set of TV screens stacked on top of each other, giving the work a vertical dimension as well. The image thus demonstrates the flexibility of the frame in video.

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