The video document series Participation (1969-1971) is a free-form time capsule of an era. It represents Vasulkas' view of New York downtown scene right after their arrival in the USA. The artists used the early Portapak video system to document Don Cherry performing outside on Washington Square, Warhol Superstars on stage, Jimi Hendrix or Jethro Tull in concert, among others. Petr Vrána will explain the story of his commission to digitize some of the U-Matic videotapes from Vasulkas' archive. 
 

Petr Vrána (1956) is Czech visual artist and producer. He met the Vašulkas in 1986 thanks to Peter Weibel. Vrána is the author of the VIDOX technology, which enables the transformation of a video signal into thermal paper and subsequently into a moving painting. His short films "Drumrum" and "Medienpornesie" were screened at the ANNECY festival and the FUKUI biennial and he received several awards. Vrána is the author of the visual style of TV Hessen 3 and together with Jan Hammer created a set of jingles for TV Nova. In 1992, on Národní třída in Prague, he opened public Media Archive focused on video art. He worked as pedagogue, for example at the KHM in Cologne, at the Academy in Kassel and at FAMU. He participated in the German exposition for Expo 2000 in Hannover. In 2004, he was the producer of the opera R.U.R. premiered in Brno after the book of Karel Čapek, for which he engaged Bohuslav and Steina Vasulkas. He lives in Prague and Kassel.