As we consider new tools and technologies for working with the video signal, it can be interesting to look back at key periods of innovation for digital video editing and manipulation. Steina and Woody Vasulka are "pioneers" of video and new media art and technology who spent their careers exploring the innate potential of the signal and pushed for new tools to facilitate this exploration. Steina, in particular, was fascinated with advancements in real-time A/V processing for purposes of performances, interactivity, and immersive environments and worked with many engineers and software developers throughout the 90s to create and modify software for these purposes. In anticipation of an upcoming exhibit being organized by the MIT List Center, I have been going back into my days assisting the Vasulkas with their archive and exhuming rare videos documenting the development process for these tools which has led to further inquiry around what was not-yet possible to do with consumer-based open-source video tools from this time. This begs the question of what past efforts have been made to create artist-driven tools with an open-source ethos, the successes and failures of these efforts, and what archives of this content can do to better ensure these obscure and abstracted histories can be interwoven to form a more complete narrative around media histories.
