One of the ‘greats’ of video art, Steina Vasulka played a crucial role in advancing the video medium and developments in the field. She was bom as Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1940. While studying violin and musical science in Prague, she met Woody Vasulka. They married in 1964 and emigrated to the USA in 1965. In the collaboration with her husband and in her own works the exceptional of the Vasulka legend becomes obvious. In the field of installation in particular, she has since the 1960s invented specific technologies, like the videomatrix installations, which was produced on multi-monitor systems.
The couple numbered among the co-founders o f ‘The Kitchen’ in New York in 1971, the legendary venue in which video as well as other art-forms inspired important developments in the modern arts. For many years, ‘The Kitchen’ set the trends in contemporary video art.
Steina Vasulkas Œuvre embraces, next to video, installations and performances. Electronically manipulated landscapes and music are constant factors running through her video-based reconstructions ofperception and imagination.
A violinist with a classical background, she was one of the first artists to set up an interface between video and musical performance. Steina Vasulka will be presenting a new version of her interactive performance ‘Violin Power’ in Podewil at 20.00 on 20 February.
Among the many fellowships and awards granted to Steina Vasulka are the Golden Laser (1992), the Maya Deren Award of the American Film Institute, and the Siemens Award for Media Art (1995).
Professor Wulf Herzogenrath is considered to be the godfather of video art in Germany. He won recognition for video art through numerous exhibitions, above all the video section of the ‘documenta’ in 1977 and the show ‘Videoskulptur retrospektiv’ and ‘aktuell 1963-1989’. He also played a major part in making German video art known to an international audience. He is the present director of the Kunsthalle in Bremen, where he recently staged a Nam June Paik retropspective.
Wulf Herzogenrath will be asking Steina Vasulka about her work.