Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir (Steina) was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1940. She had begun studying violin and musical theory in 1953 and continued her studies at the state conservatory in Prague. She married Czech filmmaker Bohuslav Woody Vasulka and they left together for the US in 1965. Around 1969 The Vasulkas began to experiment with video making documents of New York off-off Broadway scene with portable video equipment. In 1971 they together with Andreas Mannick founded electronic video theater The Kitchen.They experimented with processing video, using and co-developing their first video tools (video synthesizers, keyers, sequencers). In 1973 they moved to Buffalo, invited by Gerald O'Grady to teach at the Media Study at the State University of New York. One of the main subject of the first experiments was the interrelation of image and sound.

In the middle of 1970s Steina began to develop her Machine Vision installation series using cameras on moving tripods and also Violin Power performances during which she was influencing image by playing her electric violin. From Steina cooperated with Woody and Jeffrey Schier on building and testing the Vasulka Imaging System or Digital Image Articulator, one of the first devices able to generate algorithm-based images and to convert them into analog signals.

After moving to Santa Fe, Steina developed a series of multi-screen installations using landscapes recordings of New Mexico and Iceland and continued developing works that relied on a sound-image interface. During performances in the nineties, Steina used applications in the MIDI protocol to manipulate in real time a bank of images stored on videodisc. In 1992 The Vasulkas curated Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt : Pioniere der Elektronischen Kunst = Pioneers of Electronic Art for Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria, dedicated to early video and tool makers.

Steina continued researching sound-image interfaces and co-directed the Netherlands Musical Research Center at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). In 1999 Steina and Woody organized the workshop Techne and Eros: Human Sensory Space and the Machine in Santa Fe and founded the Arts and Science Laboratory in Santa Fe with the composer David Dunn and the physicist James Crutchfield.

Biografická informace

Steina was born in Iceland in 1940. She studied violin and music theory, in 1959 continued her studies in Prague and in 1965 moved to the US with her Czech husband Woody Vasulka. In New York she started to experiment with video, researching above all the interface between image and sound in real-time audiovisual performances. She co-founded The Kitchen, electronic media lab in 1971. Her installation cycles include Machine Vision, Allvision or The West, in Violin Power (1970-78) she influences the image by vibrations of her digital violin. She is the author of multi-monitor installations which use imagery from New Mexico where she's been living since 1979 and Iceland.