Vašulka Mediascape

Steina & Woody Vašulka, Vašulka Video: Transformations (1978, 28:50)

WNED Transformation

Woody explains the importance of the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor in his work and, with Steina, demonstrates its use. Projects presented include C-Trend (1974), The Matter (1974), and Telc (1974). This was one of the six programs produced by the Vašulkas with WNED, the local public television in Buffalo, as part of an artist residency. Woody’s work with the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor allows him to restructure analog video’s electronic frame, a gesture that Woody celebrated as a critical structural intervention. As in most of the Vašulkas’ projects, they credit the tools and tool designers at the end of each piece. Those tools include the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor (Steve Rutt and Bill Etra), a non-commercial device that enables the artist to feed brightness info into the horizontal scan mechanism, creating ghost-like images that register brightness as a kind of landscape. Critically, the Rutt/Etra enables Woody to manipulate the framing/shape of the video raster, creating images that appear object-like. Images created with the Rutt/Etra cannot be directly recorded because the standardized framing mechanism has been interfered with, so these experiments must be re-scanned with an independent video camera. Also used are George Brown’s Multikeyer and Drift Clock, similarly non-commercially developed devices.

Chris Hill, unpublished (2023).