Two Heads, Four Hands
An Artistic Duo at WorkArt zone 8smička, Humpolec
The exhibition Two Heads, Four Hands: An Artistic Duo at Work at 8smička in Humpolec
includes two early video works of The Vasulkas.
Artifacts
manipulated video, 23 min., 1980
In Artifacts, Woody experiments with constructing and deconstructing digital visual imagery. Moreover, he is interested in the possible ways of manipulating the electronic vocabulary on the basis of algorithms. The videotape visualizes this process-oriented restructuring of analogue into digital images. Line composition and pixel structure are revealed as the visual effects of digital “scanning,” where the modulation of x/y-signals causes horizontal and vertical expansion and the gradual deceleration and acceleration of image data ultimately generates morph effects. In constructing digital visual imagery, and, in particular through stripping the electronic vocabulary off its “material” algorithmic basis, Artifacts is, first of all, a dialogue between analog and digital image processing. It is also a dialogue with the machine, because again, Woody uses his own hand as a primary creative tool. However, in contrast to Vocabulary, the task is to visually present the transformation processes “layer by layer” and “number by number.”
Vocabulary
manipulated video, 4 min., 1973
Conceptually, Vocabulary demonstrates the interplay of keying and feedback, because while the replacing of luminance makes visible the incoherence of the electronic “surface,” system feedback at the same time disrupts and visually merges the otherwise distinctive shapes of the hand and the sphere. The disorder of object placement, first of all, results from the appearance of the electronic “raw material” on certain surface parts of the sphere and the hand, when both are subjected to processing and keying. Primarily, multiplication of the distorted shape is achieved through extended feedback where the presented hand as visual object gains a new spatial behavior that is independent from physicality and directionality of Woody’s actual hand movement as it is presented. Clearly, an image of a body part becomes a spatial object, similar to the object of the sphere that is treated here in the same manner, because the visual field on the whole is “processed” by a system feedback operation. Not only does the presentation of the objects shift visualization from realism to an artificial look, more disturbing is the merging of parts of the objects with each other that creates a physically impossible situation.
Exhibiting Artists: Julia Gryboś & Barbora Zentková, Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová (CHITKA), Jarmila Mitríková & Dávid Demjanovič, Aleksandra Vajd & Hynek Alt, Steina Vasulka & Woody Vasulka, Jaroslava Brychtová & Stanislav Libenský, Vasil Artamonov & Alexey Klyuykov, David Böhm & Jiří Franta, Ondřej Brody & Kristofer Paetau, Lukáš Jasanský & Martin Polák, Milan Mikulaštík & Jan Nálevka (MINA).
Concept: David Böhm & Jiří Franta
zóna umění 8smička Humpolec
Kamarytova 97, 396 01 Humpolec