Steina Vasulka

Funtime at the Vasulkas (2006)

A recording of a meeting in the studio where Jeffrey Schier and Woody show colleagues and teachers a new tool. Between 1976 and 1980, Woody and Schier designed a prototype device, the Vasulka Imaging System, or Digital Image Articulator. It was one of the ...

Music in the Afternoon (2002)

Fellow violinist and artist Tony Conrad, in collaboration with software engineer Tom Demeyer, made for Steina the instrument seen in this title. Conrad and the Vasulkas all taught at the University at Buffalo in the Media Study Department from 1976 to 1979 ...

Warp (2000)

In Warp, Steina makes use of her two favourite features of the Image/ine software, written by Tom Demeyer. The first feature – 'warp' – is a time delay software, which scans one line at the time, leaving the rest of the image motionless. With the secon ...

Orka (1997)

STEINA: "My background is in music. For me, it is the sound that leads me into the image. Every image has its own sound and in it I attempt to capture something flowing and living. I apply the same principle to art as to playing the violin: with the same a ...

Vermin of the Vortex (1996)

Alienation in academia beneath the chandeliered opulence of a political correctional facility that caters to clashing cultures with chicken fajitas and carefully worded alphabet soup. Features George at the Flaherty Seminar and the Chicago Underground Film ...

In the Land of the Elevator Girls (1989)

In the Land of the Elevator Girls uses the elevator as a metaphorical vehicle to reveal an outsider's gaze into contemporary Japanese culture. The continual opening and closing of elevator doors serves as a succinct formal device, as the viewer is offered ...

Lilith (1987)

Against a field of swaying and halting yellow vegetation, another processed field: the image of the eponymous subject (performed by painter Doris Cross) riles and emits unintelligibly to the viewer. Conjuring the mystical biblical character Lilith, Steina' ...

Voice Windows (1986)

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

Double Lunar Dogs (1984)

Based on Robert Heinlein's 1941 story "Universe," Double Lunar Dogs presents a vision of post-apocalyptic survival aboard a "spacecraft," travelling aimlessly through the universe, whose passengers have forgotten the purpose of their mission. As a metaphor ...

The Commission (1983)

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 w ...

Somersault (1982)

Using one half of a convex mirror mounted within a glass cylinder, Steina trains the video camera eye dead center as she records the space immediately around her. "Steina playfully does gymnastics with her camera and its mirrored lens attachment as a means ...

In Search of the Castle (1981)

This symbolic journey evokes the personal creative wandering of the Vasulkas. The landscape, shot from a car window while driving in the Santa Fe area, is gradually transformed with more and more complicated imagery techniques. ...

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 ...

Minnesota Landscapes (1980)

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. ...

Selected Treecuts (1980)

"Selected Treecuts" is a formal examination of the distinction between camera-generated and digital images, and a layered juxtaposition of contrasting representations of reality. The methodology of the tape is simple: a zoom lens moves slowly in and out on ...

Violin Power (1978)

Steina trained as a classical violinist, pushing her experience as a professional musician into the electronic realm with this seminal work. Originally performed in the late 1970s as a live recital with monitors, "Violin Power" began with the idea of gener ...

Vasulka Video (1978)

In 1977 the Vasulkas were commissioned by public television to create six half-hour programs (Steina, Objects, Digital Images, Transformations, Vocabulary, Matrix) for broadcast on WNED in Buffalo, New York. The resulting series, entitled Vasulka Video, is ...

Vasulka Video: Steina (1978)

In 1977 the Vasulkas were commissioned by public television to create six half-hour programs for broadcast on WNED in Buffalo, New York. In the resulting series, entitled VASULKA VIDEO, the Vasulkas introduce and contextualize their works and discuss their ...

Orbital Obsessions (1977)

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 manipulat ...

Homemade TV: Vasulkas II (1975)

Description from Portable Channel catalog: "This Program is a unique broadcast presentation of the Vasulka's recent experiments with the electronic image. It is not "video on TV" but a "videobroadcast" direct from the Vasulkas' loft in Buffalo, New York." ...

Homemade TV: The Electronic Image (1975)

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. ...

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 ...

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. ...

C-Trend (1974)

Telc (1974)

Soundsize (1974)

Soundsize continues the Vasulkas' investigation into the relationship of sound and image. Here a pattern of dots is modulated by sounds generated from a synthesizer, changing size and shape in a visual manifestation of electronic sound. ...

Solo for 3 (1974)

In this early formal experiment with analog image processing, the Vasulkas investigate multiple camera set-ups and keyers to articulate spatial, temporal and sound/image manipulation. Solo for 3 is a playful technical exercise in which three cameras were t ...

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 obje ...

Vocabulary (1973)

Distant Activities (1972)

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

Participation (1971)

This period compilation of documentaries shot with a Portapak camera from the early era of video experimentation offers an immediate view of the independent New York art scene (concerts and theater perfomances on the streets and in the clubs of downtown). ...

Calligrams (1970)

A film by Steina and Woody Vasulka ...

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. ...

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. ...

Discs (1970)

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 ...

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 ex ...

Sexmachine (1970)

The Vasulka Effect (2020)

The opening of The Vasulka Effect couldn't be more apt: Steina Vasulka addresses her husband Woody through various TV screens. He does the same and replies. A perfect image of the relationship between the free-spirited, groundbreaking pioneers of video art ...

Funtime at the Vasulkas (2006)

A recording of a meeting in the studio where Jeffrey Schier and Woody show colleagues and teachers a new tool. Between 1976 and 1980, Woody and Schier designed a prototype device, the Vasulka Imaging System, or Digital Image Articulator. It was one of the ...

Music in the Afternoon (2002)

Fellow violinist and artist Tony Conrad, in collaboration with software engineer Tom Demeyer, made for Steina the instrument seen in this title. Conrad and the Vasulkas all taught at the University at Buffalo in the Media Study Department from 1976 to 1979 ...

Binary Lives (1996)

A short documentary on the life and art of Steina and Woody Vasulka, produced in 1996. The Vasulkas speak candidly about their work and worldviews, and the piece features excerpts from their early works and a glimpse into their '90s output. ...

Somersault (1982)

Using one half of a convex mirror mounted within a glass cylinder, Steina trains the video camera eye dead center as she records the space immediately around her. "Steina playfully does gymnastics with her camera and its mirrored lens attachment as a means ...

Group Portrait: Six Artists in Video (1978)

This is a documentary about video artists Bill & Louise Etra, Woody & Steina Vasulka, and Kit Fitzgerald & John Sanborn. ...

Violin Power (1978)

Steina trained as a classical violinist, pushing her experience as a professional musician into the electronic realm with this seminal work. Originally performed in the late 1970s as a live recital with monitors, "Violin Power" began with the idea of gener ...

Vasulka Video (1978)

In 1977 the Vasulkas were commissioned by public television to create six half-hour programs (Steina, Objects, Digital Images, Transformations, Vocabulary, Matrix) for broadcast on WNED in Buffalo, New York. The resulting series, entitled Vasulka Video, is ...

Orbital Obsessions (1977)

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 manipulat ...

Video: The New Wave (1975)

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 ...

Homemade TV: Vasulkas II (1975)

Description from Portable Channel catalog: "This Program is a unique broadcast presentation of the Vasulka's recent experiments with the electronic image. It is not "video on TV" but a "videobroadcast" direct from the Vasulkas' loft in Buffalo, New York." ...

Homemade TV: The Electronic Image (1975)

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. ...