An internal conversation between the creator of iMMERSE!, Charlie Morrow & the producer of iMMERSE!, bart plantenga. They’ve been working on the iMMERSE book-podcast-exhibition project for some years now & it was time to take stock of what they’ve learned & experienced... The fact is the subject of immersion, losing yourself in a context, a space, …

Lotta Wennäkoski is a Finnish composer based in Helsinki. She has won praise and has been described as a lyrical Modernist and post-Expressionist. She studied violin in Budapest in her youth. She also studied music theory & composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki as well as the Royal Conservatory of The Hague under Louis Andriessen. Wennäko…

CM Hausswolff: Immersion at the Junction of Electronics & Nature 32 "I was thinking about immersion & that word – when you become engulfed with something, when you sink into something & you feel that you are a part of something." Carl Michael von Hausswolff [also known CM Hausswolff & personally known as Mickey] was born in Sweden in 1956. He’s unu…

In the early 1960s, Poet & multimedia artist Gerd Stern & friends Michael Callahan & Steve Durkee founded USCO (an acronym for Us Company or the Company of Us). It became a burgeoning cooperative group of artists, poets, filmmakers, engineers, & composers who worked out of an old church in Garnerville, New York, north of NYC. It is here that they e…

“I define immersive as the first time I realized that there was a bigger universe than my daily life.” David First is a many-sided composer-musician having played in Dead Cheese, a hippie guitar band in his youth, performed with Cecil Taylor in Carnegie Hall, produced many records of minimalist drone music some of which were released on Phill Niblo…

Robin Sip as a Dutch writer-producer-director and CEO of Mirage3DRobin is best known for productions like Mars 1001, Dinosaurs at Dusk, Origins of Life, Natural Selection & Dawn of the Space Age, which was the world’s first 3D fulldome film. Sip is also an award-winning pioneer of special venue 3D cinema & his Mirage3D is a leading fulldome-VR prod…

Phill Niblock migrated to New York after completing a BA in economics at Indiana University, determined to pursue his passions: photography and film, often documenting jazz and modern dance performances. [Playlist below] But, despite having no formal musical training, he soon found himself inspired by the New York music scene and immersed himself i…

Vitiello, a New York native, is an internationally recognized sound artist and mainstay of the New York scene since his early days as a punk guitarist. He has been influenced by Nam June Paik, has collaborated with Scanner, Pauline Oliveros and Frances-Marie Utti. He is also an electronic musician and visual artist. And, according to Morrow, “an ab…

Pierre Brand began sound mixing and editing for film in 1994 and has made a name for himself on feature films such as Ghosted and Trial by Fire and on international documentaries of note such as Blue Note A story of Modern Jazz, Absolute Warhola, Wildnis Europa and The Hunt for Gaddafi's Billions. He attended the Berklee College of Music and curren…

This is a summer interlude, a special remixed iMMERSE! version of the summer of 2022 broadcast of the Wreck This Mess radio show: Wreck the Drowning World 1249 & serves as a reaction to the countless 2023 summer climate catastrophes that have hit far & wide – including the iMMERSE! & Charlie Morrow archive & headquarters in Vermont. I’ve been resea…

Tim is a museum designer who transforms the static notion of a museum into something dynamic and engaging. He has worked for Ralph Appelbaum Associates, an award-winning international interpretive planning and exhibition design firm, for over 28 years. He is the director of RAA’s Berlin-based studio. He has directed the interpretive planning and ex…

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Gideon D’Arcangelo is a man of many ambitions. His main interests include the integration of virtual and physical worlds, working toward the design integration of physical, media, systems, graphic & content to ultimately create holistic experiences. He joined Arup’s New York office in 2019 where he is a Principal and serves as the Americas Digital …

Ville Pulkki’s fame reached the techno avant garde with the adoption of his ingenious VBAP (vector-base amplitude panning) a tool for creating spatial sound. When I met him in Helsinki, I was delighted to discover that behind the techie who developed VBAP, a charming jokester. Since then, I’ve enjoyed his warmth and his efficient organizing of the …

Micky Remann is a German media artist and producer of media events. He invented the “Liquid Sound” concept and its installation in various locations with exceptional waters such Bad Orb & Bad Sulza in Germany. They involve participants floating in body temperature salt water where they participate in immersive experiences that includes underwater s…

Today’s iMMERSE podcast is even more unusual than many of the others. I interviewed Elke and Peter Schumann in February of 2020 in their Glover, Vermont home along with Jay Walbert, the archivist for my Archive in nearby Barton, Vermont. The octagenarian Schumanns immigrated from Germany to New York in 1961 and have led the Bread and Puppet Theater…

iMMERSE! 19 Charley Morrow interviews Chris Wangro Today we talk with my long-time friend & co-conspirator in public events, Chris Wangro. We met through the New City Department of Parks, where he just had been hired as events coordinator. My colleagues and I at the New Wilderness Foundation were producing a summer solstice celebration in New York'…

Charlie Morrow: The Magnetic Still Point [hors-serie iMMERSE! podcast] Hello, I’m Charlie Morrow. Welcome to iMMERSE! & our conversations on immersivity. Today is a still point. One of those moments when time seems to have stopped. I’ve been moving further & further north from my origins in New Jersey, US & art & business beginnings in New York Cit…

This is a relaunch of immerse! 6 with updated information on the Notre Dame renovations Brian Katz, acoustican, CNRS Research Director at Sorbonne University’s Institute Jean Le Rond d’Alembert Sound Lab, is also a specialist in spatial hearing, room acoustics, and virtual reality. The most interesting development in the past few years was his work…

iMMERSE! is a series of podcasts I produce with Charlie Morrow who interviews colleagues & collaborators on the trending topic of immersion [think sensuround sound +]. For Morrow, it all began in the mother’s belly, eventually migrating to the Ear Inn where he met a pack of audio outliers & ended up with Ear Magazine & the Audiographics series of c…

Thomas Kraupe is a German astrophysicist who specialized in x-ray astronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. He’s managed a kind of magical situation by combining math & physics with his love of planetariums & music to create numerous interactive edutainment & art science crossover projects that have attracted artists such …

Canadian artist-professor Luc Courchesne was an early convert to media arts some 50 years ago. He began utilizing computer technologies in 1984 to create interactive video and later with his immersive and interactive installations, "panoscopic" images, and devices of his own, he helped transform spectators into visitors, actors and inhabitants of h…

Canadian Claude Schryer is a Zen practitioner who believes in the power of art to shape a better future & dedicates much of his life to this pursuit. He has been a sound & media artist, having released several electroacoustic soundscape CDs in the 90s. for 20 years, He served as an arts administrator with the Canada Council for the Arts in Inter-Ar…

“I realized that we were going to be able to take audiences & immerse them in the universe, take them on a journey & surround them with the mystery & the beauty of the universe.” Ian McLennan is a pioneer in the development of planetariums, museums, science centers, & other high-content public attractions. Based in Vancouver, Canada, he has shepher…

A re-airing of the iMMERSE! with Charlie Morrow pilot broadcast, with a new special introduction. A special 80-minute celebration & investigation of the life & work of audio pioneer Michael Gerzon, inventor of Ambisonics & lossless audio, which revolutionized recorded sound. The podcast series launch came in conjunction with the immerse! online eve…

Neafus as the co-founder of IMERSA has hosted numerous international fulldome summits & is considered a pioneer in the field of immersive & experiential arts & technology. He strives for the synergistic convergence of the fulldome experience, VR, immersive cinema, science, education, culture & performance art. Charlie Morrow came into contact with …

The immerse! project was initially sparked by astrophysicist-educator Ka Chun Yu’s essay, "A Brief History of Immersive Experiences Before Computers." Yu is the Curator of Space Science at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He has performed educational research on the utilization of digital planetariums for the teaching of astronomy & has creat…

Monica Bolles already wears many hats. She’s an artist, music producer, audio engineer, and composer who is very involved in three-dimensional environments and the creation of immersive experiences, especially in full-dome setting. She loves exploring the fusion of multimedia arts, science, sound, and immersive environments that submerge the audien…

Capt. Rip Hayman (US Merchant Marine) is a sailing musician & musical sailor who has traveled to many faraway places at sea & in sound imagination. He eventually became a mainstay of the Ear Inn & New Wilderness crew. Produced events like Dreamsound for sleeping audience, Blindsound for blind audience and On the Way, a film & sound meditation on hi…

American archaeologist & anthropologist heads the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center & is a Senior Scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. He's done extensive research on the history & archaeology of Arctic peoples & their responses to climate change. Morrow & Fitzhugh worked together on Fitzhugh’s exhibit The Vikings, which made the …

Martyn Ware, a man of many talents: English musician, composer, producer, & podcaster, is a founding member of the synth-pop groups Human League & Heaven 17. He's also an explorer of immersion & 3-D sound. Charlie Morrow discusses their mutual interest in immersion, both the technological & the psychological aspects... Read entire interview pdf her…

Pamela Z is a composer-performer & media artist who creates works for voice, electronic processing, samples, & video. She has composed scores for dance, film, & chamber ensembles. She was commissioned by the Kitchen in NYC to create a 3D music work for Morrow's True3D Soundcube in 2004. Morrow interviewed her 2021. Read entire interview pdf here * …

Paco Underhill was inspired by the methodology of urbanist William H. Whyte & the fact that he has lived in many cities around the world as the son of a diplomat, is a retail space doctor, consumer behavior consultant and best-selling author of Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, founded the first iteration office of his consultancy Envirosell in …

Brian Katz is an acoustican, CNRS Research Director at Sorbonne University's Institute Jean Le Rond d'Alembert Sound Lab, a specialist in spatial hearing, room acoustics, and virtual reality. Read entire interview pdf here * production & audio backdrop: bart plantengaAv Charlie Morrow

Miya Masaoka is an utterly fascinating Fluxus-nfluenced artist who was inspired by her childhood fascination with her cat's purring vibrations. She often works with environmental sounds in natural settings and has produced intriguing performance duets with insects. Read entire interview pdf here * production & audio backdrop: bart plantenga…

David Toop, the poetic musician and author of Ocean of Sound & Haunted Weather who has followed the path of shamanism and sonic experience is here engaged in a fascinating conversation about memory & immersion. He is a respected improviser and thinks of all his creative activity as improvisation. Read entire interview pdf here * production & audio …

Charlie Morrow & Annea Lockwood, New Zealand-born American composer & environmental musician discuss immersion. She has taught electronic music at Vassar College. She’s known for her explorations of natural acoustic sounds and environments, in works ranging from sound art & installations, to text-sound, performance art & concert music. She's record…

Charlie & Jaron Lanier, pioneer of virtual reality, met in the late 1970s at Rip Hayman's famous Ear Inn in New York. Jaron worked on EAR Magazine and created a cover with New York’s subway stops as musical instrument play buttons. He jammed in the Ocarina Orchestra. Jaron shares his earliest experiences with immersivity and some of his latest work…

Pilot broadcast of the immerse! podcast series is a special 80-minute celebration & investigation of the life & work of audio pioneer Michael Gerzon, inventor of Ambisonics & lossless audio, which revolutionized recorded sound. The podcast series launch came in conjunction with the immerse! online event: Celebration of the Vernal Equinox & Michael …