Composer, performer, engineer, and artist, Steina created a body of work over the past three decades that expanded the boundaries of video technology, electronic imaging, and new media art in unprecedented ways. She came to visual art from experimental music and engineering - two different worlds that began to merge with video and installation art in this country, particularly in New York, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steina's prolific career includes live performances, opto-mechanical kinetic sculptures, single-channel videos, and multi- channel installation "environments." This broad range reflects Steina's immense curiosity, creativity and resistance to art historians' and critics' fondness for categorizing art by style, type, or movement. Despite her aversion to the often cryptic rhetoric that accompanies the theorizing of art, Steina's work embodies the diversity, technological experimentation, spatial innovation, and interactivity that have become hallmarks of new media today.