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33-528: The original conference, named New Music New York, with concordant (and demonstrative) concerts was held at The Kitchen in New York City in 1979. One of the themes there was to break down barriers created by the segregation of genres, and breaking music journalist/critic-driven pigeonholing . The 12 years of the festival's existence was marked by over 750 performances, exhibits, workshops, installations, and artistic inventions, each festival supplanting

66-576: A bad thing as it coaxed many musicians to bunk with others who had similar tastes for new creation. Money was the prime driver for its dissolution, as the Hartford festival was within a $ 300,000 - $ 400,000 range while the Montreal festival had projected over a million (Canadian) in costs. All festivals were considered great successes but took so much effort of coordination (and in some cases treaty-building between opposing music factions) that it acquired

99-591: A co-creator of this device, showed frequently at the Kitchen during the Vasulkas' tenure). Steina's practice centered around environmental, mechanical, and physical relationships between body, video, and camera, beginning with a late-1970s series of moving-camera environments titled All Vision and Machine Vision which were shown, in part, at The Kitchen. The Vasulkas have collaborated with Harald Bode (posthumously). In 2014, The National Gallery of Iceland opened

132-553: A curious public and new musical creation. But as a self-propelled machine, it kept growing to try to "represent" the vastly growing varieties of expression taking birth with new technologies and reassessments of the general music culture, and to do so it had to grow financially as well. Perhaps its greatest accomplishment was connecting large audiences (sometimes in the thousands) with works which critics, music industry reps and radio people all considered too serious, complex, weird or difficult. In addition, audience members were placed in

165-589: A faculty position at the State University of New York's Department of Media Studies, though they would maintain involvement with The Kitchen and its programming. Though Steina and Woody had worked outside their duo before, their practices diverged to a greater extent following this relocation. Woody's practice became more focused on digital image manipulation and the employment of tools like the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer (Bill Etra,

198-517: A handful of performances and showings each month, included a range of live documentary and experimental videos, live video performances, live video processing , media installations, and “experiments in perception.” The Vasulkas' work at this time was colored by the artists' interest in negotiating terms like "space" in the context of video and what Yvonne Spielman calls video's "image object." The Vasulkas' wide exploration of video in this ontological regard led to apparent contrast, such as that between

231-479: A program of video distribution, when video was still considered an experimental form. The Kitchen moved uptown to 512 West 19th Street, a former ice house , to begin the spring 1986 season and subsequently purchased the space in 1987. The inaugural event series in The Kitchen's new home was entitled New Ice Nights . In 1991 The Kitchen held its twentieth anniversary celebration: The Kitchen Turns Twenty with

264-492: A retrospective mini-music festival entitled Five Generations of Composers , as well as a re-creation of Jean Dupuy ’s Soup and Tart , entitled: Burp: Soup and Tart Revisited . The Kitchen remains a space for interdisciplinary and experimental work by focusing its programming on emerging artists. In fall of 2011, after seven years as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen, Debra Singer handed over

297-715: A scholarship at the Prague Conservatory in 1959. Woody Vasulka was born in Brno , now in the Czech Republic and trained as an engineer before studying television and film production at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague . While pursuing his studies in the fifties, Woody Vasulka wrote poetry and produced short films. The pair met in Prague in the early 1960s, where Woody introduced video to Steina. For

330-428: A unique position of being among the musician's peers as the week-long length permitted performers to attend each other's concerts or events. Though it was always a 10-day festival more or less, the price for full admittance at Hartford was $ 20 and housing was provided on campus. By New York 1989, prices had grown to around $ 350 for full pass and at this point, only hotel accommodations were available. This wasn't always

363-407: Is committed to advancing work that is experimental in nature. Its facilities include a 155-seat black box performance space and a gallery space for audio and visual exhibitions. The Kitchen presents interdisciplinary work in music, dance, performance, video, film, visual art, and literature. Looking for a way to present their work to a public audience, Steina and Woody Vasulka rented the kitchen of

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396-654: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts ). In 2021, the Kitchen named Legacy Russell as the institution's next Executive Director and Chief Curator. In 2014, the Getty Research Institute announced its acquisition of The Kitchen’s archives , including 5,410 videotapes and more than 600 audiotapes, as well as photographs and ephemera documenting performances, exhibitions and events staged from 1971 to 1999. Also included in

429-614: The Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan , New York City . As the organization undergoes a multi-year renovation it is currently sited at a satellite loft space in the West Village located at 163B Bank Street, where exhibitions and performances are regularly held. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1971 by Steina and Woody Vasulka , who were frustrated at the lack of an outlet for video art. The space takes its name from

462-444: The documentary -style Participation series involving footage of real-life performances (occurring in the space in front of and around the video camera), and works like Caligrams , in which the Vasulkas use hardware devices such as scan processors, video sequencers, and multikeyers to "play" or perform with video like a musical instrument, and in a different kind of space. In 1974, The Vasulkas moved to Buffalo, New York to pursue

495-474: The American Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. In 1968, Woody conducted his first experiments with images made with electronics and put aside the cinematographic form in favor of video . Steina was experimenting with video at the same time as Woody, with equipment that the couple had borrowed from Lloyd. Over time, the Vasulkas became more closely involved with the artistic communities around them and

528-670: The Fillmore DVD released 1999, released again 2012) In 1971, the Vasulkas founded The Kitchen , a multi-use media theater located in the kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center in Grand Central Hotel , Greenwich Village , in the interest of cultivating new-media art in an inclusive, comprehensive, and un-administrative context. Under the direction of Dimitri Devyatkin , and with help from Andy Mannik, Sia and Michael Tschudin, Rhys Chatham , and Shridhar Bapat ,

561-556: The Mercer Arts Center, in the former Broadway Central Hotel in Greenwich Village, Manhattan . (The Mercer Arts Center was an important venue for music and theater performance in New York City from 1971 to 1973.) The Vasulkas, with help from Andy Mannik, opened The Kitchen as a presentation space for video artists on June 15, 1971. Later that year, the Vasulkas added music to their programming and named Rhys Chatham

594-497: The New Music Alliance with the task of recreating New Music America in a different city every year, allowing for composers and performers to be seen in their own region while giving a greater exposure to music creators ignored both nationally and historically, such as John Cage , Morton Feldman , Lou Harrison , Pauline Oliveros , Terry Riley , Philip Glass , Rhys Chatham , and Earle Brown , but not Milton Babbitt ,

627-586: The Olympics paradox of being unable to reduce itself in size. In 1992, the attempts to revive NMA resulted in New Music Across America, sort of an Avant-Garde World Music Day , hosting simultaneous music event days under a single banner. The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street , between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in

660-680: The Vasulka Chamber, a collaboration between the museum and the artist couple. They donated a substantial amount of their digital archive to the museum and it is the Chamber's aim to preserve the legacy and collection of the artists. In 2016 the Vašulka Kitchen Brno (VKB) was established in Brno in The Czech Republic, for research, artistic experiment and informal education in the field of new media art. It consists of

693-466: The archive are 246 posters designed by artists like Robert Longo and Christian Marclay . 40°44′44″N 74°00′25″W  /  40.745452°N 74.006846°W  / 40.745452; -74.006846 Steina and Woody Vasulka Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in 1940) and Woody Vasulka (born Bohuslav Vašulka on 20 January 1937 – 20 December 2019 ) are early pioneers of video art , and have been producing work since

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726-510: The composer whose 1958 essay "Who Cares if you Listen?" created a cold war between the public's desire for new sounds and the modernist composer's desire to sound new. San Francisco followed in 1981, Chicago in 1982, Washington, D.C., in 1983, Hartford, Connecticut in 1984, Los Angeles in 1985, Houston in 1986, Philadelphia in 1987, Miami in 1988, returning to New York in 1989 and ending in Montreal in 1990. The festival always had workshop components and provided many points of contact between often

759-1269: The corner of Wooster and Broome Streets in SoHo . In 1987 it moved to its current location in Manhattan, New York City. The first music director of The Kitchen was composer Rhys Chatham . The venue became known as a place where many no wave artists like Glenn Branca , Lydia Lunch and James Chance performed. Notable Kitchen alumni also include Philip Glass , Laurie Anderson , Rocco Di Pietro , John Moran , Jay Scheib , Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Peter Greenaway , Michael Nyman , Steve Reich , Pauline Oliveros , Gordon Mumma , Frederic Rzewski , Ridge Theater, The Future Sound of London , Leisure Class , Elliott Sharp , Brian Eno , Arthur Russell , Meredith Monk , Arleen Schloss , Vito Acconci , Keshavan Maslak , Elaine Summers , Lucinda Childs , Bill T. Jones , David Byrne / Talking Heads , chameckilerner , John Jasperse , Bryce Dessner , Nico Muhly , Dave Soldier , Soldier String Quartet , Komar and Melamid , ETHEL , Chris McIntyre, Sylvie Degiez, Wayne Lopes/CosmicLegends, Cindy Sherman , and Swans . Today, The Kitchen focuses on presenting emerging artists, most of whom are local, and

792-638: The early 1960s. The couple met in the early 1960s and moved to New York City in 1965, where they began showing video art at the Whitney Museum and founded The Kitchen in 1971. Steina and Woody both became Guggenheim fellows: Steina in 1976, and Woody in 1979. Steina Vasulka was born in Reykjavík , Iceland and trained as a classical musician and violinist and was a member of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra . Steina received

825-527: The emerging fascination with video and new-media, and grew more dedicated to their developing video art practice until they made it their shared full-time occupation. On December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970 Woody Valsulka video recorded Jimi Hendrix performing with Band of Gypsys at the Fillmore East in NYC. The recordings are included on a DVD included in a CD release of the concerts. (Source: Live at

858-478: The first few years following their relocation to in New York, the Vasulkas were not involved with the local art scene; Steina continued to practice as a violinist and Woody began making independent documentaries and edited industrial films at Harvey Lloyd Productions. In 1967, at the request of architects Woods and Ramirez, Woody collaborated on developing films designed for a multi-screen environment to be shown in

891-493: The first music director. The Kitchen continued their eclectic programming at the Mercer Arts Center until the summer of 1973 when they began planning to move to 59 Wooster Street. On August 3, 1973, the building that housed the Mercer Arts Center collapsed, making this decision final. By 1973, the Vasulkas and Rhys Chatham moved on to other projects and hired a talented arts administrator, Robert Stearns, to take over as executive director. The visual artist/composer Jim Burton became

924-431: The new music director. The 1973–1974 season started in The Kitchen's new location at the corner of Wooster and Broome streets in the former LoGiudice Gallery Building. During its time on 59 Wooster Street The Kitchen emerged as New York's premiere avant-garde and experimental arts center. In addition to a performance space, a gallery and video viewing room were established at this location. At new location, The Kitchen began

957-410: The original location, the kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center which was the only available place for the artists to screen their video pieces. Although first intended as a location for the exhibition of video art, The Kitchen soon expanded its mission to include other forms of art and performance, and incorporated as a not-for-profit arts organization in 1973. In 1974, The Kitchen relocated to a building at

990-680: The previous in size, expanding its diversity and many bringing "new" music to everywhere conceivable in the United States. Impressed by the breadth (and probably fun) of the NMNY, the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis wanted to replicate the experience and held a similar festival a year later, this time named New Music America. Most likely it was at this time that a loose coalition of national administrators and musicians became

1023-555: The reins to former Artforum Editor-in-Chief Tim Griffin . In 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded The Kitchen with four feet of water from the Hudson River , causing damage of about $ 450,000. With insurance only covering less than half the loss from the storm, the Kitchen received grants from Time Warner and the Art Dealers Association of America, as well as from nonprofit organizations and foundations (like

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1056-658: The space received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts and expanded its programming, which was foregrounded by video and electronic media performance and would come to include new music programming under the direction of Rhys Chatham. The Kitchen would relocate following the collapse of the Mercer Arts Centre, but maintain its mission. The Kitchen was valuable space for a number of music, performance, and media artists in New York who at

1089-428: The time did not feel welcome in commercial galleries or the mainstream art-world. The Vasulkas' programming for The Kitchen provided the space to a number video artists who would become prominent, including Joan Jonas , Nancy Holt , Vito Acconci , Mary Lucier , Dara Birnbaum , Bill Viola , and Gary Hill . The work that the Vasulkas presented at The Kitchen's original Greenwich Village location, which amounted to

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