STEINA!
Posted by | Jessica Bardsley | Posted on | October 9, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 6:00 pm | Steina Vasulka in person! Live performance!
- Image from Violin Power (Steina, 1974-78). Courtesy the artist.
A major figure in the histories of video and electronic art, Steina Vasulka has continually expanded the possibilities of multimedia with her groundbreaking innovations. Trained as a classical violinist in Iceland, Steina turned to video after moving to New York City in the mid-1960s. Her distinctly musical experiments with the electronic signal, including her real-time performances and development of early video synthesizers, reverberate throughout historical and contemporary art practice. Steina’s recent projects continue this pioneering approach, as her dynamic environments of digitally manipulated visual and acoustic landscapes have been installed around the world. This evening, Steina presents a collection of both classic early pieces and newer works, discusses her interest in electronic media, and performs a stirring, not-to-be-missed interpretation of her seminal performance piece, Violin Power (1974-78/1992 – present). Steina Vasulka, 1970-2011, USA, multiple formats, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
STEINA VASULKA (b. 1940, Reykjavik, Iceland) is a major figure in the history of electronic and media art. She emigrated to the United States in 1965 after marrying Woody Vasulka. Together, they have significantly contributed to the aesthetic, theoretical, and institutional framework for electronic art, founding The Kitchen with Andreas Mannik in 1971, contributing to the development of the video art program at the Whitney Museum in the early 1970s, collaborating with Geoffry Schier to build one of the first real-time, computer-controlled video processors, and developing an open source, online archive from their personal papers at vasulka.org. Steina is the recipient of numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Art Fellowship, an American Film Institute Maya Deren Award, and the Siemens Media Art Prize in Germany. Her work has been screened, installed or performed at festivals and arts institutions in the U.S. and internationally, including at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; The Kitchen, New York, NY; the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Media Festival S’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands; and the L’immagine Electronica Festival, Italy. She currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
