Review: Electromediascope at the Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art. Steina and Woody Vasulka's Participation

Review of Steina and Woody Vasulka’s Participation
http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?PARTICIPAT



Steina and Woody Vasulka are renowned artists that are credited alongside others with the development of what we now today deem new media art. The Vasulka’s founded The Kitchen as a media arts theater in New York and formed an arts collective to reside there in 1971. They have explored the territories of documentaries, modulation through analog and digital signal processing as well as computer programming.
They arrived from Prague in the 1960s to New York where they found themselves in the midst of an explosion of culture through the arts. Steina was previously studying classical violin and Woody was a student in the FAMU film academy. They soon, to their amazement at the exciting times they were living in, began to document using a portapak, the emerging underground theater and music scenes in New York City. The results were compiled into Participation an example and tour de force of this illegitimate culture riding the waves of free love, Pop art, feminist issues and the emergent homosexuality on display within New York and American culture at large.
Steina has stated that she learned the craft of the camera as a documentarian of the counterculture of New York also known as the “ sexual avant garde”. All the elements that make a great documentary are in Participation. The craft is very evident in particular by how we are as the audience led upon this tour de force through the use of the simple process of editing. Steina and Woody make good decisions for the most part particularly when it comes to managing time, inserting either potent clips of famous musicians (Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Don Cherry performing in Washington square are standouts) or underground homosexual theatre, where the sheer performance, the spectacle of these performances is enough to take your breath away. They splice this footage in contrast to some of the more illegitimate figures and actions within the underground culture such as burlesque dancers, drag queens, and some of the characters that hung around Andy Warhol’s Factory that add humor to the equation.
The highlight clearly was a piece that could stand out separately from the rest of the footage. It was Steina’s piece where she is lip-syncing to “ let it be” by the Beatles. What was so enthralling about this presentation and simple action has to do with the potency that still resonates with the lyrics “let it be” in relation to the time period that Stenia is lip syncing in. The 1960s and the early 70s was a time of change from the sexual revolution to the Student riots in 1968 that happened all around the world, and Stenia’s piece is a humorous and enticing video to watch. This video presents and sums up the excitement of that era.
The film closes with Don Cherry (who was an innovative Jazz trumpeter and was a pioneer in the Jazz/fusion movement) who seems to bring the film to a close with his performance in Washington Square. Once again, this is a clever editing choice on part of the Vasulkas who presents Don Cherry leaving Washington Square as spectators look upon alluding to the idea that the events, changes, etc. that transpired during the course of that era still live on and are responsible for some of the major developments that we have experienced presently especially through the arts and the world at large.
Participation acts as a sort of time capsule capturing the uniqueness of a certain region going through massive change. How does one react to change historically? Historically we have reacted by utilizing the art of expression. This is what this film presents: the democracy of expression in the United States during the late 1960s and 70s with all its audacity. Participation is an amazing journey with very few mediocre performances.
However, this film was not meant to be viewed within an institutional setting such as the Nelson-Atkins’ Auditorium. When displayed in the early 1970s, it was projected in gritty bars frequented by the people it was depicting. Perhaps by screening this film within an institutionalized setting the experience became a bit "formal" when it was meant to be experienced "informally"? I also can’t help but wonder if the curators have taken into consideration that perhaps the title alludes to something beyond just the artist’s own experience? The importance of being a part of something special is the knowledge that what is so special about it is the fact that you are sharing.How could this film be presented in a manner that promotes a reciprocal exchange that is felt. If anything could be founded within Participation is that those within the film had the driving force of passion for expression.
Most of my critique actually is with the institution itself which in many cases appears to be a very limited sphere. How could this film be displayed in a way that evokes the audience to become participants? How could we view this film in contrast to the era that we are participants within?
This brings us to the problem with many institutionalized programs, which lie in the lack of a critical dialogue as well as the lack of employing the use of experimental educational models. This could be useful especially if the work is a bit dated (which I don’t feel that Participation suffered from).