New Wilderness Archive
Since the 60s, Charlie has collaborated with hundreds of artists in creating and curating works in performance, electronic media and print. The artists include poets, authors, musicians, visual and performance artists, dancers, filmmakers, video artists and actors.
Significant themes in the work include the fusion of sound and language, spatial sound, environmental installation, networked performances and shamanism. Morrow has owned professional sound studios with staff and interns since the 60s.
The Charlie Morrow Archive includes:
1. New Wilderness Foundation publications 1974 - 1990:
Ear Magazine - the foremost publication on new music and sound art.
New Wilderness Journal - a journal of poetry, Jerome Rothenberg, editor
Audiographics Cassettes - pioneering cross cultural, artist's audio works
2. New Wilderness event designs, documentation and content:
New Wilderness events with the NW Preservation Band
Solstice events and broadcasts
Sound Poetry festivals incl. the 12th International
Radio and TV shows
Events in public spaces
Guest productions and installations around the world
3. Charles Morrow Associates 1969 has archived its entire output of productions and production documents.
CMA started in music and sound design for film scores and commercials but since the late 90s serves the museum and interactive installation market. A selected list of projects accompanies this description. Morrow has been a pioneer in the area of mixed sound design and music. His role in both art and commerce parallels the work of artist - designers in visual arts, architecture and object making.
The Morrow Archive includes CMA, NWF and personal works in diverse media. It includes posters, a library of audio and video master tapes and recordings, manuscripts and small press publications, and memorabilia, work sketches and concept documents, business documents, correspondence, documentation and press as well as Morrow's personal journals and agendas.
The media masters, ranging from the 60s to the present, which number several thousand include analog and digital media:
- 1/4", 1/2", 1" and 2" x 10 inch reel to reel tapes
- audio cassettes, audio and data DATS, Syquest
- floppy disks, hard drives, CDs, DVDs etc
There is a series of hand written notebooks begun in the 50s with pasted in documents. There are paper files on all projects throughout Morrow's career including agreements, talent contracts, financial books, royalty statements and bank records, telephone message books, guest books and scraps of paper with notes.
Macintosh restore and backup files have been kept of:
Text docs: correspondence, proposals, schedules, etc
Finances and accounting.
E mail which begins in the 80s
SCORES AND SOUND NOTATIONS
There are masters of every Morrow sound work in the form of hand written scores, sketches, manuscript and computer masters, and copies.
There are Midi, Performer and ProTools files.
FILMAKER FILES (digital database)
Oldest of the databases is the Filemaker Rolodex which keeps track of people, their critical information and projects. It supercedes old paper rolodexes and files of business cards which are in the archive.
Keyed to project names and numbers, there is the Master Catalogue of works which includes entries for all archived titles and artifacts.
There as well an equipment inventory which switched from paper to Filemaker over the course of time.
With the turn of the millennium, Charlie began Filemaker work logs which are part of the archive. He also began Years, Places, Events, a database of writings which is biographical and anecdotal which expands with stories and as events or performances in the present suggest a comment on the past or a work. "There is very little information in Years Places Events about my personal partners and wives. I guess my life speaks for itself in these matters."
Coordinating the databases, one can see where Morrow resided and where projects where produced and presented.
PHOTOS
We have been slow to catalog photos and press, which is more abundant than their listings.
There are many posters of Morrow events, but only some are digitized.
STUDIO EQUIPMENT
includes analog boards and some of the recording decks from Morrow studios of every vintage.
There is a set of six Jack Weisberg subwoofer horns: 3 feet mouths x 6 feet long, originally stacked three on three all facing one corner in Morrow's former living room at 365 West End.
WRITINGS include unpublished and published essays and sound scripts:
Polemic pieces including the American Music Center pamphlet
"View from the Bottom of the Heap" written at career beginning urging composers to take the independent paths
Morrow's essays as the music critic for The SOHO NEWS.
These describe rather than criticize works by such artists MacLow, Alison Knowles, Philip Corner.
Text and Numerical Works such as The Number 6, A Book of Numbers.
Music outside the Concert Hall, Moving my Vowels (Star Spangled Banner variation).
The archive is located in Barton, VT on the former land of Morrow's friend, collaborator and patron Dick Higgins (Fluxus, Something Else Press).
Inventory November 04:
141 Boxes of Reel-to-Reel audio masters.
38 Boxes of Original Scores
28 Boxes of Multiples ( Books, Publications, Posters, Flyers etc..)
29 Boxes of VHS and Studio Videos
8 Cataloged Binders of Press , Photos, and Personal Mem.
80-100 Posters and Mis. signed art
20 Boxes of NWF cassettes and inserts, recorded inventory, bios.
12 Boxes of misc. CMA business records
Total 350 + Record Albums
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