Vašulka Mediascape

Publication: Woody Vašulka & Charles Hagen, “A Syntax of Binary Images,” (1978) — “I want to transform computer knowledge into … people-utilized material”

Woody Hagen

Woody: “ … I would say that the first thing I realized when I tried to analyze why I was interested in technology was that I felt this primitive need to disclose the secrets. Maybe it’s jealousy against the sciences, which are operating in this unbelievably poetic area of code transformation. Imaging itself is a total mystery to me, how technology has produced so powerful an element. That was the reason: I wanted to be a person who takes the fire from the gods and brings it down to the common level. Of course, on the way there I became a specialist myself. It takes a certain amount of time which is disproportionate to living. It has become a major preoccupation for me. But I still think that I am a mediator between that knowledge and the rest of the culture. I want to transform computer science into a commonly utilized, art-utilized or people-utilized material. But, generally, it’s curiosity that pushes me on.”

Woody Vašulka & Charles Hagen, “A Syntax of Binary Images,” in Afterimage, Rochester, NY (1978), and in Buffalo Heads, Woody Vašulka & Peter Weibel, eds, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2008).

“ … Sometimes these relationships border on suggesting an understanding of the image as object because for me creating an electronic image is a matter of architectural construction; in fact, it’s building an image in time. So, I relate to the idea of the image as object.”

Woody Vašulka & Charles Hagen, “A Syntax of Binary Images,” in Afterimage, Rochester, NY (1978), and in Buffalo Heads, Woody Vašulka & Peter Weibel, eds, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2008).