Vašulka Mediascape

Art of Memory: “its material [is] the black-and-white photographic and film images of historic events of the first half of the 20th century”

“The different relationship of the electronic image to the photographic image's role of furnishing evidence is thus a central aspect of Woody's project. Art of Memory reflects on how the construction of memory and history is mediated through the camera arts. It takes as its material the black-and-white photographic and film images of historic events of the first half of the twentieth century: the Spanish Civil War, the Russian Revolution, World War II, and the atomic bomb. Woody establishes the process of history making as his central topic, but re-orchestrates historical images in a jumble of objects and frames; this is a text of memory, fragmented and refusing simple coherence. Some images assert themselves, emerging to suggest narratives – such as Robert Oppenheimer's famous post-atomic bomb speech, in which he quotes the Bhagavad-Gita – but are then re-submerged in the flow of images and the rush of history.”

Marita Sturken, “Steina & Woody Vašulka: In Dialogue with the Machine,” in Machine Media, Robert Riley & Marita Sturken, curators, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (1996); link: https://www.vasulka.org/Catalogues/PDFs/Cat_MachineMedia.pdf.