Woody Vaskula made experimental films before working in video. He always sought the most continuous form of expression. For that purpose he used the image synthesiser created by Jeffrey Scherier, the Digital Image Articulator, whose possibilities he would explore with Steina Vasulka. It allowed them to obtain entirely new visual configurations. What seems at first merely a formless network of oscilloscopic waves turns out to be the analogue trace of a shot of a street and passing cars.

The grey, mysterious structure unfurls in a spiral, like a neutral background of a material as receptive to sonic events as to the movement of objects. The latter are taken in a mould, or perhaps a temporal modulation wherein the mould itself changes shape, folds with time. It is a brilliant demonstration of the malleability of the electronic image. A strangeness in the shapes' slow twisting leaves an obscure sensation in the viewer's perception.

Hyppolite Massardier

(Texte extrait du catalogue 'Vidéo et après', éd. Centre Pompidou/ éditions Carré, 1992)

Translated by Phoebe Green