As part of the Oral History Series of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, pioneers of video art whose works are part of the n.b.k. Video-Forum collection are interviewed about the early years of video art. Berlin-based media artist and composer Arnold Dreyblatt, who studied with Steina and Woody Vasulka in the 1970s, talked online with Steina Vasulka about her and Woody Vasulka's joint work, early experiments with electronic images and sounds, the founding of The Kitchen in New York and the role of women in the context of these formative early years.

Steina Vasulka (*1940 in Reykjavik as Steinunn Bjarnadottir, lives in Santa Fe/New Mexico) studied violin at the Music Conservatory in Prague (1959-1963) before moving to New York with her husband Bohuslav Peter (Woody) Vasulka (*1937 in Brno, †2019 in Santa Fe) in 1965. There, in 1971, with Andreas Mannik, they founded the pioneering performance theater The Kitchen, which quickly became a central venue for electronic and experimental art. Steina Vasulka became a central figure in the newly emerging media art scene. She and Woody were already making short films in Prague, and from 1967 they both began experimenting with electronic sounds and stroboscopic light, and from 1969 also with electronic images. Steina Vasulka's enthusiasm for video and her development of multimedia installations make her a pioneer of analog and digital video art. She experimented with the camera and with sound effects and constantly explored new ways of using electronic processing to generate sounds from video images and video images from sounds, surprising the audience in its perceptual habits. Both Steina and Woody Vasulka have held various teaching positions and have been honored with numerous grants and awards, including the American Film Institute Maya Deren Award in 1992 and the Siemens Media Art Prize in 1995 at the ZKM Karlsruhe.

Arnold Dreyblatt (*1953 in New York City, lives in Berlin) is a media artist, composer and musician. He studied with Steina and Woody Vasulka at the Department of Media Study at the State University of Buffalo/New York (1975-1976) as well as composition and music with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier (1975-1982). He moved to Berlin in 1984. His artistic practice ranges from media installations, public art works and interactive artistic research projects. At the same time, he has developed a unique body of work in the fields of composition and music performance. His work has been recognized with numerous commissions and awards, including the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in New York, the Akademie der Künste Award in Berlin and a residency at the Center for Arts, Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. From 2009-2022, Dreyblatt taught as a Professor of Media Art at the Muthesius Academy of Art and Design in Kiel. He has been a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin since 2007 and has been Deputy Director of the Visual Arts Section since 2021.