Steina and Woody Vasulka: Machine Media

Groundbreaking figures in the history of video art, Steina and Woody Vasulka are esteemed both as artists and as innovators in the development of imaging devices that have greatly expanded video’s expressive capabilities. This volume, published to accompany a survey of their work, looks in depth at eight video installations and nine single-channel videotapes produced by the Vasulkas both individually and as a team. In an introductory essay, Robert R. Riley places the Vasulkas’ explorations of electronic images in relation to the development of video art from the 1960s to the last decade of the twentieth century and the radical cultural and technological changes that took place during that time. Marita Sturken considers their self-described approach to the creative process as a “dialogue with the machine,” and Maureen Turim and Scott Nygren underscore the inherent radicalness of the Vasulkas’ approach to video art, emphasizing the ways in which they went beyond the simple manipulation of electronics to establish their own electronic lexicon. Finally, Woody Vasulka discusses the evolution in his work from single-channel video to installation.