10-Section 1 " I rts--Drania fit r,F %I,o EV1 Albright-Knox Art Gallery Human Presence' Seems Violation In Video World By ANTHONY BANNON of 'Machine Vision' In one corner of the white room, a video with a mechanically rotating prism lens surveys the scene with an unblinking eye scanning through 360 degrees. Beneath it, a moni- tor reveals the view. In,the opposite corner, a cam- era mounted on a turntable presents another arced vision through a similarly vertical axis, displayed on a monitor, below. Two corners are left in Steins Vasulka's video installation in Albright-Knox Art Gallery; two corners and a capping center: In the third corner, a camera regards its own cool optics re- flected in a vertically tilting mirror . while in the fourth cor- ner. an opposing camera sees it- self in a horizontally panning mirror With the four , a thor- ough mapping of the space is executed And should anything be missed, it is picked up by two cameras in room's center that point into a reflecting globe. * * VIDEO VIEW - Video artistsWoody,and.Steina Vasulka cheek a SIX CAMERAS, six monitors part' of their in- and a reflecting globe - a stallation now on view in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. multiple display of a fractured space split like a broken egg foundations and most recently dures, as well as expressions of frame and its implications and reassembled, reprogram- the Guggenheim Fellowship for their imagery, are simply be-' of narrative sequencing. med and re-presented around Steina. Both now live and work yond the ken of most, including Later work, including panels the It in Buffalo. art initiates. of still room is the inside looking * * video images, document out and the outside looking in. * "Forced editing . . . asynchro- various wave forms - the build- Systems observe themselves . THE VIDEO medium has nous overlays . . . camera/moni= ing blocks of electronic images Human presepce seems a thrived for fewer than 10 years, for rescan . . . scan processor . . . and their extension into spa- violation . and the Vasulkas - together multikeyer . . . H.D. Variable tial illusion. Here, it is less the movement and separately - have explored Clock . . . Field Flip/Flop Sketches, didactic tableaux of of the scene that creates moving most means of image manipula- Switcher" - these are pro- binary (yes-no/off-on) images, images than it is a matter of tion available. They have col- cesses and pieces of equipment stereo images taken from video, the camera systems themselves laborated in the design and dis- used early in their career, when a stack of monitors showing in motion. covery of new electronic image- video was still young and inno- images that appear to progress processing equipment, revealing "Machine Vision" is the name coherently from one monitor to the elemental structure of the another, and still other exam- - "a decadent auto portrait of video signal and displaying its WOODY VASULKA'S exhibit, cameras," said Ms. Vasulka. ples of video experiments com- possibilities. called "Directions,"' introduces plete the display. Steina and Woody Vasulka Their videotapes through the the thoughtful viewer to the new are video pioneers, founders of years are a testimony to an ex- considerations of electronic "I WANT to decode the the Kitchen in , an ploding medium as they image processing. images into their elements of electronic media forum for dis- present, more like scientists, the Chronologically, Vasulka's structures," Vasulka told me. play and interaction. They have summaries of experimentation, works begin here with film "Every image is justified by its been internationally exhibited rather than like artists, creating strips from the late '60s that underlying code." and are recipients of grants, in an aesthetic. display a field of 360 degrees, The hothouse of experimenta- cluding state and federal arts Explanation of their proce- rejecting the confinement of the tion in early video "didn't lead me into freedom. Early video was an uncontrollable pleasure, but I discovered that I'm a col- lector'of the underlying codes. I believed they could become CORONETSUPER 12 building blocks of structure . . .' And I became disinterested in images I cannot decode." He explained: "In film, we take an image itself to be a CARTRIDGEFROM TYPEWRffER code. Take a face, for example. We read from it one's age, a certain state of mind - or we SMITH-CORONA think that we can - and proc- ess of life. This is a photograph- RUGGED, All ELECTRIC ic code . . . PORTABLE THAT GIVES "ELECTRONIC IMAGES YOU THE PRINTED LOOK possess acertain code, too. The elements are wave forms, time " Office-sized 88 character keyboard and energy. From that, I ask: " Extra long carriage for wide paper What is the possibility of one " Full range of professional features line? How does it behave fi5t" top to bottom, and how can it be " High impact case for traveling built up, and into what?" OUR CODES Using a computer, Vasulka 8001-05 PICA 8001-06 ELITE arrived at other elements of structure : A point for instance, a dot upon the screen. That dot REG. PRICE $219.97 Touch .. . cartridge is ejected. Push ... cartridge is ready to go. has values of brightness and darkness, and it has location ... ribbon . SALE Never again touch a within the frame that enable it CHANGES IN JUST to build toward a significant PRICE 3 SECONDS! meaning. $2049LIST PRICE $314.00 "BUT WHILE I'm grateful that video relates to the past, I SALE ENDS SUNDAY, NOV. 5th would like to locate my work within a technical process. I am presenting a technical system rather than an aesthetic, and we obey a technical inspiration, consciously denying ourselves any aesthetic system." BARRAMIRICIRD SALES, INC . The Vasulkas'' exhibit, curat- AVAILABLE AT ALL LOCATIONS ed by Linda L. Cathcart and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for , continues through Nov. 26. .