Writes Steina: "In 1994 I spent long hours with blacksmith Tom Joyce, videotaping the process of building an iron gate. I found iron gates a little too concrete, so I closed in on the intense and violent nature of materials being manipulated by torches, files, and anvils — the rapid flicker of flames... Tom and I share a fascination with fire — as a phenomenon and as a medium that transforms other materials... as a medium of transmutation." In Pyroglyphs, which was originally a multi-monitor installation, the sounds of the blacksmith and the fire are digitally processed; the sound, in effect, determines the percussive editing.