Studies for Brotherhood, Steina and Woody Vasulka, 1980s and 90s, video documentation of narrative experiments shown on DVD

Brotherhood – 6 Media Constructions, Woody Vasulka, 1990s and ongoing, video documentation of narrative experiments shown on DVD

Brotherhood

“While the central theme of Brotherhood revolves around the dilemma of male identity, it could also be understood as arising from the general compulsion of mankind – to engage itself in a never ceasing attempt to reorganize nature itself. Foremost, it supports the male justification of warfare as an accepted and integral part of human evolution.

The six individual media constructions are a series of tables representing the core with its instrumentation able to produce, compose and display varied acoustic and visual structures. Surrounded by an exoskeletal support and carrying media (projectors, speakers, screens, lights, sensors), these clusters of technology exhibit a certain volume of behaviors through digital programs or in reaction to a set of sensors associated with each table.” — Woody Vasulka

Selected Works of Steina and Woody Vasulka

Steina and Woody Vasulka

The art scene in New York City during the mid-1960s and early 1970s was one of social fermentation where dialogs between artists of all kinds were breaking down barriers between disciplines, and new audiences for many forms of contemporary art and culture were emerging. The Vasulkas arrived into the midst of this extraordinary milieu from Prague where Steina was studying classical violin and Woody was a student in the FAMU film academy. They soon began using portable video equipment to record and present multi-monitor installations of this burgeoning scene (see Steina 1970-2000, SITE Santa Fe, 2008). During this time the Vasulkas also began experimenting with real time video image manipulation including audio modulations of the live video signal. Since then their work has continued to be innovative in terms of the history of video art, but more importantly, the body of work they have produced collaboratively and as individual artists has played a significant role in the development of what is now being charted as the broader field of electronic (new) media. .

Steina’s many video works are beautiful examples of her sustained experimentation over many years with analog and digital signal processing and aspects of machine vision. Her videos take many forms including single-channel and multiple monitor works, projection environments, non-narrative database sequencing and the use of electromechanical-kinetic optical apparatus.

Woody Vasulka’s early studies of signal processing explored unique ways of encoding displacement functions in relation to video raster topologies of the human face. This led to the development of syntax for signal modification that supported psychological aspects of electronic images as seen in the narrative-material tropes of Art of Memory and The Commission. Subsequently he has combed military surplus lots at Los Alamos and other locations around the country for discarded electronic equipment. Through the use of electronics, optics, engineering and computer programming he has produced new forms of media constructions including hybrid automata and electromechanical systems that explore cultural and psychological aspects of human interaction with advanced military technology and the subjectivity of war machines. –Patrick Clancy

Portrait courtesy of Meridel Rubenstein, 1981.

DVDs and image stills courtesy of the artists. Descriptions of works courtesy of the artists, electronic Arts Intermix and Steina: 1970–2000, SITE Santa Fe.

Electromediascope website