Resonant Memory: Works by Steina and Woody Vasulka

Join us on Saturday, November 1 at 2pm at e-flux Screening Room for “Resonant Memory,” a screening of five seminal video works by Steina and Woody Vasulka, revisiting key pieces from the Vasulkas’ experimental practice, which spans the boundaries of image, language, and memory, and opens up new possibilities of perception through electronic media.

Pioneers of video art and co-founders of The Kitchen in New York in 1971, the Vasulkas developed a radically new visual grammar by manipulating the signal itself. This program seeks to honor their legacy while reigniting transatlantic conversations about the role of archives, preservation, and the politics of visibility in media art today.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Robyn Farrell, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Kitchen in New York; and, joining virtually, Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir, founder and director of BERG Contemporary in Reykjavík; and Kristín Scheving, founder of the Vasulka Chamber at the National Gallery of Iceland, manager of the Vasulka Foundation, and long-time collaborator of Steina Vasulka. The discussion will be moderated by Peter Sit, curator of the program and art director of e-flux journal.

“Resonant Memory” is organized in collaboration with Vasulka Kitchen Brno, BERG Contemporary, and Vasulka Foundation, with support from Czech Center New York.

Program

Steina Vasulka, Violin Power (1978, 9 minutes)
A pioneering experiment in using sound to modulate video,Violin Power explores the violin as an interface for live image processing. As Steina plays, the video signal bends and distorts, driven by the acoustic vibrations of her instrument. The piece reflects her background as a classically trained violinist and her deep engagement with signal-based video aesthetics.

Woody Vasulka, Vocabulary (1973, 4 minutes)
This didactic tape presents the basic principles of electronic imaging—such as keying, timing, and system feedback—through a visual language shaped by early video tools like the Rutt-Etra Scan Processor. Vocabulary demonstrates the Vasulkas’ approach to video as both scientific inquiry and poetic abstraction.

Woody Vasulka, C-Trend ( 1974, 9 minutes)
In C-Trend, urban traffic footage is transformed by scan deflection technology into a live visualization of voltage. The piece manipulates the raster—the horizontal lines that structure video images—to create fluid, drifting distortions, accompanied by synchronized sound. It is both a meditation on the signal and a dialogue with the machine.

Steina Vasulka, Cantaloup (1980, 22 minutes)
Created in collaboration with engineer Jeffrey Schier, Cantaloup showcases the capabilities of a custom-built Digital Image Processor. The tape digitally divides and manipulates a white sphere into 16 luminance levels, demonstrating early forms of pixel-based video transformation. A playful exploration of a new language of digital image processing.

Woody Vasulka, The Art of Memory (1987, 36 minutes)This complex video essay interweaves childhood memories of war, mnemonic techniques from antiquity, and digital landscapes modeled on cognitive architecture. Inspired by Frances Yates’ book The Art of Memory, the work uses historical imagery and structured spatial metaphors to reflect on how memory is constructed, visualized, and encoded.

Bios

Robyn Farrell is Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Kitchen in New York where she oversees the exhibition, performance, and publication program. Her research interests include conceptual art and the moving image, emerging disciplines of time-based art, artist networks, and the history of exhibition and distribution of film and video. Prior to The Kitchen, Farrell was Associate Curator in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Farrell has contributed to numerous publications and artist monographs, has spoken widely on contemporary and time-based media, and is an internationally recognized scholar on the work of German filmmaker and video art pioneer Gerry Schum, including his landmark art on television broadcasts such as Land Art (1969). Farrell holds an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has served as a visiting lecturer and moderator for the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir is an artist, curator, and the founder and director of BERG Contemporary, an international art gallery based in Reykjavík. She also serves as director of the Silfurberg Art Fund and is a member of the Arts & Culture Global Solidarity Network at the World Economic Forum. In addition, she sits on the Advisory Board at Bifröst University, Iceland. She studied at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts in Reykjavík, the Danish National School of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen, and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Jónsdóttir has also taught at the Iceland University of the Arts and the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts. Her curatorial projects include Synthesis: Seven International Artists (Reykjavík Art Museum – Hafnarhús, 2014); Wie Raum Wird (Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, 2015); How Space Turns(Western Gallery, Western Washington University, 2015); Vertical/Horizontal: Textile Art by Júlíana Sveinsdóttir and Anni Albers (Reykjavík Art Museum – Kjarvalsstaðir, 2015); and Envoi: Drawing Spatially – Monika Grzmala(Reykjavík Art Museum – Hafnarhús, 2016). Her works have been exhibited widely, including solo shows at the ASI Art Museum and the Reykjavík Art Museum, and are part of collections such as the Danish Art Foundation and the Reykjavík Art Museum.

Kristín Scheving is a visual artist and curator, currently serving as Director of LÁ Art Museum in Hveragerði, Iceland, and as manager of the Vasulka Foundation. She is the founder of the Vasulka Chamber at the National Gallery of Iceland, established in 2014 in collaboration with Steina and Woody Vasulka and museum director Dr. Halldór Björn Runólfsson. Scheving has curated numerous exhibitions, screenings, and interdisciplinary projects internationally, and is also the founder of 700IS Reindeerland, an experimental art festival in Iceland dedicated to video, sound, and media art. She holds an M.A. in Media Arts and a B.A. in Visual Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University, England, and completed three years of fine art studies at École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, France.

Peter Sit is an artist and curator, currently working as art director at e-flux journal. From 2012 to 2022 he was co-founder and member of the collective and platform APART, through which he realized numerous exhibitions, publications, and discursive projects. Together with APART he exhibited at institutions such as Kunsthalle Bratislava, Karlín Studios (Prague), Easttopics (Budapest), Biennial of Graphic Design (Brno), CCA Chronicle (Bytom), MoMA (New York), Glassbox (Paris), Alserkal Arts Foundation (Dubai), City Gallery Prague, and Kunsthalle TRAFO (Szczecin). His editorial and curatorial practice spans exhibitions, publications, and public programs, including Harun Farocki: Shaping of Our Present (A Promise of Kneropy), 2022; Life, Death, Love and Justice (with Didem Yazici, Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Istanbul, 2022); and The 9th Futurological Congress: Future of Language (with Julieta Aranda, Slovak Radio Building, Bratislava, 2019). Sit has participated in international residencies including Salzburg Summer Academy and Art in General, New York, and has organized lectures and discussions on conceptual art, art education, and mental health. He is currently developing the research and writing project Art in Times of Anxieties and Depressions, and is curator of the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility
– Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
– For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator nearest to 180 Classon Ave (garage door) leading into the e-flux office space. A ramp is available for steps within the space.
– e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom with no steps between the event space and this bathroom.