Robert Ashley
From the publication: Kitchen turns Twenty by Lee Morrissey 1992
Beginning of a Movement
I visited Steina and Woody Vasulka in Santa Fe recently. The house
they live in is more or less a total chaos of technology and art.
Video stuff all over the place. Electronic music. Computers. Cameras.
Piles of tape. Robots. Half-eaten installations. Almost the perfect
picture of the artist's studio and the way the artist works. Another
dimension of life. It was an inspiration. I had been trying to clean
up in case some senator called on me and wanted to know what I was
up to. I realized when I was with them I had lost the vision and
when I got home I had to start making some changes. They have not
lost the vision. It was like being in the presence of the oracle.
They were in a good mood, as usual. Even though the larger area
is, I have read, owned, but not inhabited by the extremely rich
in-t1ight capital from South America and elsewhere, the general
feeling is that seven dollars an hour is a good wage if you can
get it. So there is a tendency for artists to feel like they should
stick together, which in my experience is the signal of the beginning
of a Movement. It didn't seem unusual to find Woody and Steina there.
As I looked around it occurred to me that this is probably the way
The Kitchen started. I mean, it looked so hard and full of possibilities
at the same time. I thought we should take the opportunity of The
Kitchen retrospective to wish them luck on their project. And I
took a few photos so that people can see how the past (and probably
the future) looks.
