Library

eCommons

 

Vasulka, Steina

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1813/3978

My love affair with art was all-consuming from the time I was 8 or 9 years old until my late teens. I lived by it. I went to every concert, play, opera and gallery show I could. Nothing else in life made any sense to me. I never chose to be an artist, I just knew I would not work in a bank or wait on tables. I loved playing my violin, but when faced with the prospect of being a professional musician, I realized I had made a dreadful mistake. I found myself in New York in the mid-1960s going from gig to gig, wondering if there was not more to life than black dress and meager fees. Then I discovered video - what a rush! It was like falling in love; I never looked back. As soon as I had a video camera in my hand-as soon as I had that majestic flow of time in my control-I knew I had my medium.

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    2004 Rockefeller New Media Foundation Proposal
    Vasulka, Steina (2006-12-13T21:28:22Z)
    I propose to use the Rockefeller fellowship to develop and expand two parallel tracks: One is life performances Controlling Laser Disk, Quick Time Movies or Camera input with my 5 string MIDI Violin, the other is audience interactive installations. The two activities use similar software, namely "Imageline" "Isadora" and "Jitter." They develop along similar lines of implementation, but use different tool configuration. The Midi Violin Performances are highly scored with mainly pre-recorded image material and depend on innovative, continuously evolving Tools. What started in the 70s as applying my acoustic violin to image control evolved to digital signal control and eventually to digital image processing. As the tools evolve, so does the performance, gradually getting more portable but more equipment demanding. The interactive installations engage a single camera to multiple computer platforms, from 3 to seven. In the first tape sample, there is a demo of a single camera, 3 projectors and 3 computers, in the second a single camera feeds seven computers, applying different software for seven monitors.