March 7 – REMIX-IT-RIGHT: Rediscoveries in the Phil Morton Archive

Thursday, March 7, 8 p.m. | Program introduced by curator Jon Cates.
Artists in person!

Still from Colorful Colorado (Rick Silva, 2011). Courtesy of the artist.

Chicago video pioneer Phil Morton (1945-2003) anticipated remix in his genre-defying individual and collaborative projects that share characteristics with what we now call “New Media” today. Radically open, committed to process, collaborative, contentious, and charismatic; Morton embodied what he dubbed COPY-IT-RIGHT. An alternative to copyright, this ethic encourages making, sharing, remixing, and distributing media art, its systems, and technologies. To illuminate Morton’s continued influence and inspiration, Jon Cates, founder of the Phil Morton Memorial Archive, asked an international roster of contemporary video and new media artists to remix, rework, and re-imagine Morton’s original tapes. This program interweaves Morton’s work with his remixes, resulting in a generous mash-up of past, present, proto-digital and cyber psychedelic. Presented in collaboration with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference. This program is generously supported by the Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Foundation.

PHIL MORTON (1945-2003) was an electronic visualization artist, analog computer builder, real-time video graphic performance artist, C.B. radio performer, Mobile Video Van designer and user, and videotape maker. He taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he founded the first department for Video Art to offer a BFA or MFA degree in the United States and established the Video Data Bank. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and the 1975 São Paulo Art Biennial (Brazil). Morton released his individual and collaborative projects under COPY-IT-RIGHT, a concept he developed in the early 1970s with artists Dan Sandin and Jane Veeder, among others. An alternative to copyright, COPY-IT-RIGHT is an ethic that encourages making, sharing, remixing and distributing experimental Media Art freely and openly. Morton’s thirty-year “personal video databank” is available through the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive in the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

::Program::
Colorful Colorado RevisitedYoshi Sodeoka (2013)
Deep ThoughtsJennifer Chan (2013)
Ars Electronica 2013Emilie Gervais (2013)
Mccxcc, Milk Vic mAkihiko Taniguchi (2013)
YouTube Copy of ArsElectronica1992 DVConstant Dullaart (2013)
Apple Computers Nick Briz (2013)
Colorful Colorado RemixRick Silva (2013)