"Machine Media," the recent retro- rapidly, the technological environ-

spective of work by Steina and ment by now has exceeded the

Woody Vasulka at SFMOMA, dimensions of a tool and our
demonstrated the compelling vision relationship to it could be para- Steina & Woody Vasulka
and startling prescience of the work
of these two seminal media artists . It
phrased 'Man is but a guest in the
house of technology."" This senti-
Machine Media
displayed the range of cutting-edge ment acknowledges the concerns of
themes and techniques that the such diverse commentators as Ned
February 2 - March 31, 1996
Vasulkas have explored in their work Ludd, for whom the nineteenth-centu-
from the mid-sixties to the present . ry anti-industrial movement is named,
and modern-day Luddite Senator San Francisco

The Vasulkas met in the early 1960s James J . Exon, Democrat from Museum of Modern Art
in Prague . Steina, a trained musician Nebraska, author of the controversial
born in Iceland, and Woody, a Internet censorship bill now being
by Valerie Soe
Czech filmmaker, married in 1965 contested in court . The historical
and emigrated to New York City. recurrence of these fearful responses
There they were instrumental in indicates society's anxiety over any
establishing the New York video art significant technological advance .
scene as co-founders in 1971 of The
Kitchen, the seminal experimental As if to counter and assuage these
video and performance venue that negative reactions, Woody's essay
exists to this day. In 1971 they also goes on to state, "It seems necessary
organized The Kitchen's first annual now to activate a core of creative
video festival as well as worked on a excellence in order to oppose the
program at the Whitney Museum cliche of resentment toward machine-
called "A Special Videotape Show ." assisted creative processes ."' The
work included at SFMOMA gave
Since that time the Vasulkas have ample evidence of the Vasulkas' suc-
been in the vanguard of experimen- cess in tapping into that "core of cre-
tal electronic art . The pair were ative excellence ." The show demon-
among the first artists to use multiple strated the Vasulkas' mastery of a
video monitors to display several range of techniques and concerns
concurrent channels of video . that squarely address the ongoing
Woody was involved in developing hopes and fears of the Machine
one of the first digital video proces- Age . "Machine Media" displayed
sors, the Digital Image Articulator, in the expressive and analytical possi-
the mid-seventies . The couple also bilities of artwork emerging from
organized an exhibition of early artistic uses of technology.
electronic tools at the 1992 "Ars
The show included work created by
Electronica" in Austria, which includ-
ed an interactive laser disc catalog . the Vasulkas, both collaboratively
and individually, that explored the

The body of the Vasulkas' work deal- implications of technology and

machinery in the art-making process . Steina Vasulka
ing with the interaction between tech- Allvision, from the series "Machine Vision" 1976, installation view .
nology and humanity presages much Woody's installations more explicitly Photo credit: Kevin Noble

of the current debate now occurring investigated the mixed blessings of

everywhere from Capitol Hill to the the technological age . The Theatre of
World Wide Web . In 1989 Woody Hybrid Automata (1990) consisted of
wrote, "Since technology provides five projection screens, with four at
an essential interface between cardinal points and one overhead,
human and machine, and since displaying computer-generated grids
the technology proliferates its options overlaid on images of the installation

Vol . 23, no . 1 Spring/Summer 1996

 Exhibition Review

itself . A centrally mounted camera Steina's individual work also looked rushing waterfalls, waves, and rivers
scanned the screens, tilting and rotat- at the relationship of humanity and created a kinetic environment that
ing to seek out sensors within the technology, with perhaps less sinister gradually enveloped the viewer
grids . While a touchpad supposedly overtones . Her early single-channel walking through and into the room .
provided an interactive point of entry video Violin Power (1970) examined While clearly a recreation of an
for the viewer, its sensors apparently her evolving relationship to electronic exterior landscape, the large-scale
linked only occasionally to the oper- media as she moved from being a projections effectively emulated the
ations of the installation . Rather, the violinist to a videomaker. In this visual and aural sensation of stand-
piece was internally interactive - piece the artist's violin gradually ing in an outdoor environment . Yet
that is, the computer interacted with changed from an acoustic musical by omitting the attendant smells and
itself and the camera's sensors, instrument to an electronic signal- weather conditions that would have
instead of with the viewer, to deter- generating device . This simple also been encountered at the origi-
conceit cleverly illustrates the artist's nal site, Steina points out the impos-
mine its course of action . With its
transition from musician to video sibility of any "virtual" environment
computer-generated targets and
artist, while explicating the link wholly duplicating or replacing a
crosshairs eerily evoking the "smart
between organic (i .e ., acoustic lived experience .
bombs" used in the 1991 Gulf War,
sound) and technological (i .e .,
the installation echoed both the worst
electronic imagery) creation . Although they almost exclusively
fears and greatest hopes of technolo-
create their work with machines
gy . It implied that future autonomous
Steina's later installations included and computers, the Vasulkas are
machines will no longer depend on
in the exhibition also examined the not simply sycophants of the Church
a human overseer for instruction or
relationship between naturally of Technology, nor are they doom-
guidance .
occurring and man-made phenome- saying seers of technological
na . The West (1983), a sweeping armaggedon . Rather, they use elec-
The Brotherhood, Tables I & III
configuration of two rows of twenty- tronic media to both explore and cri-
(1993-96) likewise posited a similar two video monitors playing two tique itself, with all of its attendant
near-future . Presented in a single synchronized channels of video, social and political implications .
large room, these linked installations dazzled the viewer with its highly They create machine-made work that
also used self-driven sensors, cam- processed and manipulated images is complex and compelling, with for-
eras, projection screens, and of the American Southwest. As the mal virtuosity and aesthetic beauty
machines to describe a world of camera panned gracefully across that arouses the senses and chal-
mechanical self-reliance . The viewer radio telescopes, Anasazi ruins, lenges the intellect . Theirs is both a
walked between two wall-sized verti- mesas, and pueblos, Steina's choreo- celebration and a warning, herald-
cal constructs, one mounted with graphed wipes and rhythmic rever- ing the future's coexistence between
moving video cameras, the other sals invoked a thrumming cadence . humans and machines .
with moving projection screens . The Each level of imagery traveled
action of the viewer moving through implacably across another, inter-
space seemed to prompt activity by weaving with its predecessors to 1 . Woody Vasulka, "The New Epistemic Space," in

both the cameras and screens, suggest a monumental layering of Illuminating Video, ed . Hall and Fifer (New York: Aperture,

1989), 466 .

though the extent of the interaction time and place . By commingling 2 . Ibid .

was unclear. It seemed more likely the ancient and the modern, the
that the machinery, which also natural and the man-made, Steino Valerie See is a writer and videomaker living in San

Francisco.
included a camera scanning over a suggests that each is simply another

lighted tabletop, was communicating strata of history and evolution of the

with itself, triggering its own move- American West.

ments and actions . The human

Borealis (1993) also examined the
participant was thus left as a mere evolving relationship between nature
observer only peripherally affecting and technology. Two channels of
the routines and schematics of the video played across four vertically
machines ; the piece echoed Woody's oriented large-scale translucent video
earlier decree, "Man is but a guest in screens arrayed throughout a dark-
the house of technology." ened room . The videos' images of

CAMERAWORK A Journal of Photographic Arts

34