person

1940 –

Iceland

http://www.vasulka.org/

Born in Reykjavik. She studied violin and music theory, and in 1959 she received a scholarship from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Culture to attend the music conservatory in Prague. The Vasulkas met in Prague in the early 1960's, married, and moved to New York City in 1965. There, Steina worked as a freelance musician. They founded The Kitchen, a media arts theater with Andreas Mannik (1971). They established the first annual video festival at The Kitchen. In these early years, Steina and Woody Vasulka collaborated extensively on investigations og the electronic nature of video and sound, and on producing documentaries about theater, dance, and music. Steina began to experiment with the camera as an autonomous imaging instrument, as a preperation for the Machine Vision series (1974). She has taught at the Academy for Applied Arts, Vienna, the Institute for New Media at the Staedelschule, Frankfurt, Germany, and the College of Arts and Crafts, Reykjavik, Iceland. Her installation, entitled Orka was presented in the Icelandic Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Bienale. Both received the American Film Institute Maya Deren Award in 1992 and the Siemens Media Art Prize in 1995. Their publication ’Vasulka Lab 1969-2005’ was commissioned by VIVID (Birmingham-based arts organisation), 2006. (2011)