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. . . OF THE NORTH  2001

A VIDEO MATRIX BY STEINA
Apart from the sheer size of Seven Worlds, Steina's fifteen large video monitors stacked in three rows gave the show its dazzling keynote image. Each screen projects one or another of several variations of a computer-generated sphere, each one a transparent globe or oculus in constant kinetic and acoustic permutation. The images evoked in the glass orbs range from microscopic to macroscopic: micro-organisms, crystalline sphaeraphides from plant cells, steep canyons, ocean surf, vast seas on a distant planet's surface. The spheres float unmoved and unmoving as their surfaces transform, at times turning inside out; or they spin slowly in place about an imaginary axis.

The simultaneous projections of these kaleidoscopic globes produce the monumental effect of some distant galaxy, yet the breadth, beauty, and kinetic rhythm of these patterns, modeled on nature and natural process, create a harmony of the spheres whose reference is always the earth - as in fifth largest Planet in the solar system. For all the visual draw of these stunning images, the result is more than mesmerizing. Vasulka succeeds in transforming the electronic moving image into video metaphor. It is almost immaterial whether viewers' thoughts turn to global warming, the Kyoto Accords, or the first time they peered through a telescope. What is material is the act of thinking: the movement from passive response to active reflection.

— Richard Tobin, July 2002