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Inconsecration

Phil Morton

1974 01:01:32 United StatesColorMono4:31/2" open reel video
Tags:
Image Processing, The Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive

Description

Inconsecreation is a complex mix of videos that fully explores the capability of the Sandin Image Processor’s handling of live-feed, video feedback, oscillation patterns, and recorded footage. The live-feed camera footage consists of a scene where hands are seen manipulating a mixer; the video feedback creates an ever-glowing spiral; the patterns generated from the oscillators form a series of pulsating rhombus shapes; and the pre-recorded material includes footage of a dancer and ocean scene.

The video is skillfully paced where visual oscillations accumulate into a climatic outburst. The scene eventually lands on the moving image of ceaseless ocean waves, poetically blending technology and nature into an inseparable dialogue. The keying of the dancer turns the image into a silhouette, where the body becomes a vessel that holds complex visuals, as if internalizing the expanded experience of perception. The second half of this video repeats the same materials and structure with different processing techniques.

–Gordon Dic-Lun Fung

For more information, visit the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive page. 

The date for this title is approximate. 

About Phil Morton

Phil Morton (1945-2003) received degrees in art education and fine arts from Penn State and Purdue. He began teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1969. Within a year, he had established the first video department in the country to offer both BA and MFA degrees in video production. In subsequent years Morton continued to expand the media resources and educational opportunities at the School of the Art Institute, establishing the Video Data Bank as a collection of videotaped presentations and interviews with artists in 1972.

In collaboration with Dan Sandin, Morton distributed plans for the Image Processor (IP), a modular video synthesizer based on the Moog audio synthesizer. In 1974, he established "P-Pi's" or the Pied Piper Interactioning System, a cable TV station in South Haven, Michigan. He was the sole proprietor of his own independent video production company, Greater Yellowstone News, which published, among other things, video news tapes of the wildlife and people of the Greater Yellowstone area, many of which were shown on Tom Weinberg's PBS program The '90s.

Many of the titles listed here are also part of the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive (PMMRA), which was established in 2007 by artist and scholar jonCates to coordinate and freely distribute Morton’s Media Art work and associated research under Morton’s COPY-IT-RIGHT license. In 2023, jonCates donated the PMMRA to Video Data Bank. In honor of Morton's COPY-IT-RIGHT philosophy, all titles on VDB's website are available to watch for free. Visit a title’s artwork page to view. For more information and to access the full list of available titles related to PMMRA, visit the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive Collection page. 

The titles listed on this page are videos produced by Morton. To view the list of titles only created and collected by Morton's students and collaborators, visit the Phil Morton Memorial Research Archive artist page.