Progeny

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

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.

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.

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.

The New Wave is the seminal compendium of independent video work in the early 1970s. Written and narrated by Brian O'Doherty, this overview of the emerging video field includes examples of guerrilla television and "street" documentaries, early explorations with image-processing and synthesis, and performance video. This historical anthology includes excerpts of tapes by the following video pioneers: Stephen Beck and Warner Jepson, Peter Campus, Douglas Davis, Ed Emshwiller, Bill Etra, Frank Gillette, Don Hallock, Joan Jonas, Richard Serra, Paul Kos, Nam June Paik, Otto Piene, Willard Rosenquist, Dan Sandin, James Seawright, Steina Vasulka, TVTV, Stan Vanderbeek and William Wegman.

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".

A film by Steina and Woody Vasulka

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.

Produced by the National Endowment for the Arts, along with the Jerome Foundation, this showcase is hour-long collection of shorts from six prominent video artists, all commissioned to the state of Minnesota.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.