Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt. Die Netzedition /// 2003–2004 /// Interactive Installation /// Woody Vasulka and Steina
In the coexistence of video monitor and computer screen, book and barcode reader of the net-based installation Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt. Die Netzedition (2003/2004) a few electronic workplaces of an earlier era in media art still resonate. A video catalog, produced in 1992 and commissioned by Peter Weibel for Ars Electronica, documents the pioneer of video art, especially the inventor of the innovative “Colorizer” and “Synthesizer” in sound and image. In an unparalleled work, the history of the electronic sound and the electronic picture is recorded here with forgotten artists in sound and picture documents. A new kind of technical procedure makes the stored data accessible. With the barcodes printed in the catalog, the user can directly call up photos and video sequences from the original catalog and view them on the neighboring video monitor. The exhibit functions as a corporal shell of a website on which the “Eigenwelt-Installation” of 1992 is translated and stored true to the original in the network architecture. If the users receive the video sequences transferred directly on their computer screens at home, their playback in the museum context is separated from the internet representation.
Steina Vasulka (*1940 Reykjavik, Island) lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Studies in music (violin and musicology) in Reykjavik, Prague and Paris. Marriage to Woody Vasulka in 1964, emigration to the USA in 1965. Co-founder The Electronic Kitchen, New York, in 1971, platform for experimental art in the areas of video, performance, dance and new music. Move to Buffalo, in 1974. Various teaching posts, among others, at the Academy of Applied Art, Vienna and at the Stage Academy for Design in Karlsruhe.
Woody Vasulka (*1937 in Brünn, Czechoslovakia) lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Marriage to Steina in 1964, emigration to the USA, in 1965. Associate Professor at the Center for Media Study at the University New York at Buffalo, in 1976. With Steina and Peter Weibel curated the exhibition Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt, Ars Electronica, Linz, in 1992. Winner of the Siemens Media Art Prize together with Steina, in 1995. Together with Peter Weibel curated the exhibition MindFrames. Media Study at Buffalo 1973–1990, in 2006. Pioneer work in video- and computer art with an emphasis on the examination of the possibility of generating pictures from sounds and sounds from pictures. www.vasulka.org
