New Releases: Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive

VDB is thrilled to announce the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive Collection (PMMRA)! We are proud to house the PMMRA, an archive of early video and media art created and collected by artist and instructor Phil Morton and his students and collaborators. Artist and (former) School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) professor jonCates established the PMMRA in 2007 when he received a generous donation of Morton’s personal archive from Barb Abramo, Morton’s surviving partner. jonCates stewarded the collection within the Film, Video, New Media and Animation department at SAIC until he donated it to Video Data Bank in 2023.

The PMMRA sought to coordinate and freely distribute Morton’s Media Art work and associated research under Morton’s COPY-IT-RIGHT license, an anti-copyright approach to sharing media art widely. In this spirit, all PMMRA titles on Video Data Bank’s website are available to watch for free. (Visit a title’s artwork page to view.) The collection includes approximately 300 videos, a large portion of which documents the emergence of experimental video and media art education in Chicago during the 1970s. The PMMRA is a vital part of VDB's mission to foster awareness and scholarship of early video and media art history and to preserve that knowledge for future generations. We are thrilled to provide Chicago’s experimental video art community, and beyond, with access to this important collection. 

Phil Morton taught at SAIC from 1969 to about 1983. In 1970, he founded the first iteration of SAIC’s video department, then called Video Area, which offered degrees in video art at the BFA and MFA levels–the first higher education school to do so in the United States. Morton frequently collaborated with experimental media artists in Chicago and the Video Area welcomed visiting cultural and counter-cultural luminaries. While teaching and developing the Video Area, Morton also amassed a collection of more than 200 videotapes to create the Video Data Bank, a video tape resource for SAIC students and faculty and a precursor to what Video Data Bank is today. Management of the Video Data Bank collection was passed to Kate Horsfield and Lyn Blumenthal in 1976 who established VDB as an international distributor for video by and about contemporary artists. Read more about Morton's vision, collaborators, and history in VDB's collection guide.  

In conjunction with the announcement of the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive Collection, Video Data Bank is pleased to present a new VDB TV program highlighting videos from the PMMRA. The program, selected by VDB Archive and Collection Manager Kristin MacDonough, features excerpts from videos created during Phil Morton’s time as an SAIC instructor, many of which have been recently remastered for preservation and access: 

Rescanning of IEVE (1976) is an edit of video footage captured at the second Interactive Video Visualization event, organized by Morton and his collaborators at the University of Illinois Circle Campus. Dan Sandin, creator of the Sandin Image Processor and frequent collaborator of Morton, provides an introduction to video technology in How TV Works with Dan and Phil (approx. 1975). In General Motors (1976), one of his most completed video works, Morton recorded his phone calls with his local GM dealership on video as he tried to get his 1974 Chevy van repaired, presenting a familiar illustration of consumer frustration. In the edited excerpt, Philip Glass Lecture (1974), the visiting composer talks about repetition in his musical works and how he constructs a piece. Finally, Phil Teaching Video is an edited compilation of three videos (To Deborah, Love Vidiots; W3 Form; and Phil on Special Effects) focusing on Morton’s Socratic teaching style and his emphasis on understanding the technology behind making video and audio.