Steina: Playback

Description

Steina: Playback is the first retrospective of Steina (born 1940, Reykjavík, Iceland) in Germany, a pioneer of video and media art. As a classically trained violinist, she turned to the medium of video in the late 1960s and approached it with musical sensitivity. In her practice, she creates images through sound and vice versa. Video becomes a vibration, a flow that transforms individual elements into experiential environments. Steina introduces rhythm and resonance into her electronic experiments and treats the signal as a medium that transforms perception into something mutable and alive. From early documentary experiments to spatial multi-channel installations, the exhibition testifies to Steina's lifelong pursuit of what she calls "machine vision": a playful, non-anthropocentric perspective that expands perception beyond human boundaries. Her practice shifted from the landscapes of Iceland to the experimental infrastructures of New York and Buffalo. Today, her works are exhibited in major media art institutions across Europe. "Playback" resonates with our broader program, which is cross-generational and where sound and music form a polyphonic backbone of the exhibition design. Steina's environments unfold like scores: voices break into loops, images expand rhythmically, and landscapes contrapuntally resonate. Each work composes itself depending on its relational network — it changes, fragments, and becomes polyphonic. Steina's works remain open, never complete, and carry their rhythm forward like echoes in an ongoing score, where art and perception listen, adapt, and are constantly reorchestrated. "Steina: Playback" is organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center in collaboration with the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. It is co-curated by Natalie Bell, MIT List Visual Arts Center, and Helga Christoffersen, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The coordinating curators at Haus der Kunst are Lydia Antoniou and Marlene Mützel.

Highlights

• First retrospective of Steina in Germany
• Connection of sound and image in media art
• Exhibition includes early experiments to multi-channel installations

General Information

The exhibition "Steina: Playback" at Haus der Kunst in Munich showcases the life's work of Icelandic artist Steina, who is considered a pioneer of video and media art. She combines musical sensitivity with visual media and explores the interactions between sound and image.

Location

Prinzregentenstraße 1, 80538 München, Germany

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