RE:COPYing-IT-RIGHT AGAIN

Abstract

RE:COPYing-IT-RIGHT AGAIN addresses art-science-technology connections in Media Art from Chicago during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Artists, including Phil Morton (founder of the Video Area at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and Dan Sandin (founder of the Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago), collaborated on realtime audio video projects that anticipated current New Media Art theorypractices as well as Open Source software and Free Culture. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The University of Illinois at Chicago acted as incubators for these communities, becoming internationally recognized homes of artistic experimentation and technological innovation. Artist-developers such as Phil Morton, Dan Sandin, Jane Veeder, Jamie Fenton, Larry Cuba, Ted Nelson, Tom DeFanti, Kate Horsfield, Lyn Blumenthal and Gene Youngblood connected in Chicago during this time. Creating projects that deeply influenced national and regional perspectives on Media Art, these Media Art Histories are still little known due to their radical, alternative, experimental and playful approaches. In 2007 I initiated the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive, containing Phil Morton’s “personal video databank” of materials documenting these histories. My presentation draws from this original research.