Joseph Nechvatal (born 1951) is a post-
conceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
digital artist and
art theoreticianAesthetics is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
who creates computer-assisted paintings and
computer animationComputer animation is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time...
s, often using custom-created
computer virusA computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
es.
Life and work
Joseph Nechvatal was born in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
. He studied fine art and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
at
Southern Illinois University CarbondaleSouthern Illinois University Carbondale is located in Carbondale, Illinois. The Carbondale campus is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system, which includes SIU's smaller sister institution Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.Founded in 1869, SIU ranks as one of the...
,
Cornell UniversityCornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students...
and
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
, where he studied with
Arthur DantoArthur Coleman Danto is an American art critic, and professor of philosophy.-Background and education:Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1924, and grew up in Detroit. After spending two years in the Army, Danto studied art and history at Wayne University and then pursued graduate study in...
while serving as the
archivistAn archivist is a professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to information determined to have long-term value. The information maintained by an archivist can be any form of media...
to the
minimalistMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American...
composer
La Monte YoungLa Monte Thornton Young is an American composer and musician.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer, and one of the four most celebrated leaders of the minimalist school, along with Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, despite having little in common formally with...
. From 1979, he exhibited his work in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, primarily at the Brooke Alexander Gallery and Universal Concepts Unlimited. He has also solo exhibited in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
,
CologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants...
, Atlanta,
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
,
Aalst, BelgiumAalst is a city and municipality on the Dender River, 19 miles northwest from Brussels. It is located in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Aalst itself and the villages of Baardegem, Erembodegem, Gijzegem, Herdersem, Hofstade, Meldert, Moorsel, and...
,
YoungstownYoungstown is a city in Ohio.Youngstown may also refer to:*Youngstown , an American boy band*Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, a legal case involving U.S...
,
Senouillac Senouillac is a village and commune of the Tarn department of southern France....
,
LundLund is a city in the province of Scania, southern Sweden. The town has 76,188 inhabitants in 2005, out of a municipal total of 105,000. It is the seat of Lund Municipality, Skåne County. The city is believed to have been founded around 990, when the Scanian lands belonged to Denmark...
and
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
.
His work in the early 1980s chiefly consisted of postminimalist gray graphite drawings that were often photomechanically enlarged. During that period he was associated with the artist group
ColabColab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for...
and helped establish the non-profit cultural space
ABC No RioABC No Rio is a social center located at 156 Rivington Street on New York City's Lower East Side that was founded in 1980. It features a gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab...
. In 1983 he co-founded the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
electronic art music audio project
Tellus Audio Cassette MagazineLaunched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus cassette series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting-edge downtown music, documenting the New York scene and advancing experimental composers of the time –...
. In 1984, Nechvatal began work on an opera called
XS: The Opera OpusXS: The Opera Opus was a no wave avant-garde music and art performance created by Rhys Chatham and Joseph Nechvatal in the mid 1980s. Jane Lawrence Smith sang the lead role in the Boston performance and Yves Musard danced the main role...
(1984-6) with the
no waveNo Wave was a short-lived but influential popular music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City...
musical composer
Rhys ChathamRhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
.
He began using computers to make "paintings" in 1986 and later, in his signature work, began to employ computer viruses. These "collaborations" with viral systems positioned his work as an early contribution to what is increasingly referred to as a post-human aesthetic.
From 1991–1993 he was artist-in-residence at the
Louis PasteurLouis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of disease. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies. His experiments supported the germ...
Atelier in
ArboisArbois is a commune in the Jura department in Franche-Comté in eastern France. The Cuisance River passes through the town, which has some pretty streets lined with ancient houses...
, France and at the Saline Royale/Ledoux Foundation's computer lab. There he worked on
The Computer Virus Project, which was an artistic experiment with computer viruses and computer
animationAnimation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways...
. He exhibited at
Documentadocumenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which now takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
8 in 1987.
In 1999 Nechvatal obtained his
Ph.D.Ph.D. or PHD may stand for:* Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group* Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip* PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian organization...
in the philosophy of art and new technology concerning immersive virtual reality at
Roy AscottRoy Ascott is a British artist and theorist, who works with cybernetics and telematics. He is President of the Planetary Collegium.- Biography :...
's Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales College, Newport, UK (now the
Planetary CollegiumThe Planetary Collegium is an international network for research in art, technology and consciousness, based in the University of Plymouth, with linked centers in Zurich and Milan...
at the
University of PlymouthThe University of Plymouth is the largest university in the southwest of England, with over 30,000 students and is the fifth largest UK university based on student population....
). There he developed his concept of
viractualism, a
conceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
idea that strives "to create an interface between the biological and the technological." According to Nechvatal, this is a new topological space.
In 2002 he extended his experimentation into
viralViral phenomena are objects or patterns able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them....
artificial lifeArtificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry...
through a collaboration with the programmer Stephane Sikora of music2eye in a work called the
Computer Virus Project II, inspired by the a-life work of
John Horton ConwayJohn Horton Conway is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory...
(particularly
Conway's Game of LifeThe Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is the best-known example of a cellular automaton....
), by the general cellular automata work of
John von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian American mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics John...
, by the
genetic programmingIn artificial intelligence, genetic programming is an evolutionary algorithm-based methodology inspired by biological evolution to find computer programs that perform a user-defined task. It is a specialization of genetic algorithms where each individual is a computer program...
algorithmIn mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related subjects, an algorithm is an effective method for solving a problem using a finite sequence of instructions. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and many other fields....
s of
John KozaJohn R. Koza is a computer scientist and a consulting professor at Stanford University, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of genetic programming for the optimization of complex problems...
and the
auto-destructive artAuto-destructive art is a term invented by the artist Gustav Metzger in the early 1960s and put into circulation by his article Machine, Auto-creative and Auto-destructive Art in the summer 1962 issue of the journal Ark. From 1959, he had made work by spraying acid onto sheets of nylon as a protest...
of
Gustav MetzgerGustav Metzger is an artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966...
.
In 2005 he exhibited
Computer Virus Project II works (
digital paintingDigital painting is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils, impasto, etc. are applied using digital tools by means of a computer, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software. Traditional painting is painting with a physical medium as opposed to a...
s, digital prints, a
digital audioDigital audio uses digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, storage, and transmission. In effect, the system commonly referred to as digital is in fact a discrete-time, discrete-level analog of a previous electrical analog...
installation and two
live electronic virus-attack art installations) in a solo show called
cOntaminatiOns at
Château de Linardié Château de Linardié is the name for a once active cultural center located in the South West area of France seven kilometres from Gaillac in the Tarn, France...
in
Senouillac Senouillac is a village and commune of the Tarn department of southern France....
, France. In 2006 Nechvatal received a retrospective exhibition entitled
Contaminations at the
Butler Institute of American ArtThe Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum has been operating pro bono since 1919...
's Beecher Center for Arts and Technology.
Dr. Nechvatal has also contributed to
digital audioDigital audio uses digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, storage, and transmission. In effect, the system commonly referred to as digital is in fact a discrete-time, discrete-level analog of a previous electrical analog...
work with his
noise musicNoise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
viral symphOnyviral symphOny is a collaborative electronic noise music symphony created by the digital artist Joseph Nechvatal . It was created between the years 2006 and 2008 using custom artificial life C++ software based on the viral phenomenon model. It is 1 hour and 40 minutes in length...
, a collaborative sound symphony created by using his computer virus software at the Institute for Electronic Arts at
Alfred UniversityAlfred University is a small, comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, USA, an hour south of Rochester and two hours southeast of Buffalo...
.
Nechvatal teaches art theories of immersive virtual reality and the viractual at the
School of Visual ArtsThe School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
in New York City (SVA) and at
Stevens Institute of TechnologyStevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, founded in 1870 on the basis of an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens...
. A book of his collected essays entitled
Towards an Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality (1993-2006) was published by Edgewise Press in 2009. Also in 2009, his book
Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances was published.
Joe Lewis wrote:
Viractualism
Viractualism is an art theory term developed by Nechvatal in 1999. The term viractualism (and
viractuality ) emerged out of the Ph.D. research Nechvatal conducted in the philosophy of art and new technology concerning immersive virtual reality at
Roy AscottRoy Ascott is a British artist and theorist, who works with cybernetics and telematics. He is President of the Planetary Collegium.- Biography :...
's Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales College, Newport, UK (now the
Planetary CollegiumThe Planetary Collegium is an international network for research in art, technology and consciousness, based in the University of Plymouth, with linked centers in Zurich and Milan...
at the
University of PlymouthThe University of Plymouth is the largest university in the southwest of England, with over 30,000 students and is the fifth largest UK university based on student population....
). There he developed his concept of the
viractual, which strives to create an interface between the biological and the virtual. It is central to Nechvatal’s work as an artist.
The basis of the viractual conception is that virtual producing computer technology has become a noteworthy means for making and understanding
contemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since...
and that this brings artists to a place where one finds the emerging of the computed (the virtual) with the uncomputed corporeal (the actual). This amalgamate — which tends to contradict some central techno clichés of our time - is what Nechvatal calls
the viractual.
Digitization is a key
metaphorA metaphor is a figure of speech concisely comparing two things, saying that one is the other. The English metaphor derives from the 16th c...
for viractuality in the sense that it is the elementary translating procedure today. Nechvatal thinks that in every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest the art practice away from conformisms that are about to overcome it.
For Dr. Nechvatal, the viractual recognizes and uses the power of digitization while being culturally aware of the values of monumentality and permanency — qualities which can be found in some compelling
analog- In electronics :* Analog signal, a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude, as opposed to a digital or discrete signal:** Analog circuits, circuits which use analog signals...
art. A key influence on Nechvatal was
Gilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. From the early 1960s until his death, Deleuze wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art...
's consideration of
Baruch SpinozaBaruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
- the 17th century philosopher who merged mind and matter into one material. In Deleuze's "Spinoza: Practical Philosophy" Deleuze pointed Nechvatal towards an acknowledgment of desires' productiveness, as Deleuze indicated how desires drive us to stir towards greater or lesser states of exalted comprehensiveness, depending on whether the thing encountered enters into composition with us, or on the contrary, tends to decompose us.
Viractualism signals a new sensibility emerging in art respecting the integration of certain aspects of
scienceScience is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
,
technologyTechnology is a broad concept that deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment...
, myth and
consciousnessConsciousness is subjective experience or awareness or wakefulness or the executive control system of the mind. It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena...
— a consciousness struggling to attend to the prevailing contemporary spirit of our age. Nechvatal identifies the viractualist zeitgeist as specifically a concept in which everything, everywhere, all at once is connected in a rhizomatic web of transmission. Therefore, viractual art may not satisfied with the regurgitation of a standardized
analog- In electronics :* Analog signal, a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude, as opposed to a digital or discrete signal:** Analog circuits, circuits which use analog signals...
repertoires for
artArt is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings...
. Rather, Nechvatal detects in viractual art a fertile attraction towards the abstractions of advanced scientific discovery - discovery now stripped of its fundamentally reductive logical methodology.
According to Nechvatal, the viractual realm is also a political-spiritual chaosmos in the sense that new forms of order may come up such that any form of order is only temporary and provisional. Within viractual creation all signs are subject to boundless semiosis - which is to say that they are translatable into other signs. Here, of course, it is possible to find resonances and affinities between formal and conceptual opposites. Nechvatal suggests that the term (concept)
viractual (and
viractualism or
viractuality) may be a entrainment/égréore conception helpful in defining our now third-fused inter-spatiality which is forged from the meeting of the virtual and the actual. - a concept close to what the military call
augmented realityAugmented reality is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements,...
, which is the use of transparent displays worn as see-through glasses on which computer data is projected and layered.
Cybism
Cybism is an art theory term developed by Nechvatal as a sub-division of viractuality following discussion with artist Kenneth Wahl at the turn of the century. Wahl preferred the term
scybism. The concept was proposed by Nechvatal for an exhibition in 2003 called
The Attractions of Cybism for
Fairfield UniversityFairfield University is a private, co-educational undergraduate and master's level university located in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the New England region of the United States. It was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1942, and today is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit...
that never was realized.
As defined by Dr. Nechvatal, Cybism is a new sensibility emerging in art respecting the integration of certain aspects of science, technology and consciousness – a consciousness struggling to attend to the prevailing current spirit of our age. This cybistic zeitgeist Nechvatal identifies as being precisely a quality-of-life desire in which everything, everywhere, all at once is connected in a rhizomatic web of communication. Therefore, cybism is no longer content with the regurgitation of standardized repertoires. Rather Nechvatal detects in art a fertile attraction towards the abstractions of advanced scientific discovery - discovery now stripped of its fundamentally reductive logical methodology.
Nechvatal states that cybism can be used to characterize a certain group of researchers and their understanding of where cultural space is developing today. Cybists reflect on system dynamics with a hybrid blending (cybridization) of the computational supplied virtual with the
analog- In electronics :* Analog signal, a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude, as opposed to a digital or discrete signal:** Analog circuits, circuits which use analog signals...
. This blending of the computational virtual with the analog indicates the subsequent emergence of a new cybrid topological cognitive-vision that Nechvatal has called viractuality: the space of connection betwixt the computed
virtualThe term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real...
and the uncomputed
corporealCorporeal may refer to:*Corporeal undead, See also: :Category:Corporeal undead*Matter *Body, of or relating to the body*Corporeal...
(actual) world which merge in cybism.
Nechvatal states that co-extensive notions found in cybism have sharp ramifications for
artArt is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings...
as product in that the cybists are actively exploring the frontiers of science/technology research so as to become culturally aware of the biases of consciousness in order to amend those biases through the monumentality and permanency which can be found in powerful art. He begins with the realization that every new technology disrupts the previous rhythms of
consciousnessConsciousness is subjective experience or awareness or wakefulness or the executive control system of the mind. It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena...
. In this sense cybist art research begins where hard
scienceScience is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
/
technologyTechnology is a broad concept that deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment...
ends.
Further reading
- John Johnston, The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI, MIT Press, 2008, cover
- Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A. D....
, The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance
- Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito
Jon Ippolito is an artist, educator, new media scholar, and former curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ippolito studied astrophysics and painting in the early 1980s, then pursued Internet art in the 1990s...
, The Edge of Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd, p. 213
- Frank Popper
Frank Popper is a historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII...
, From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press, pp. 120–123
- Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics....
, http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/drucker.html Joseph Nechvatal : Critical Pleasure
- Robert C. Morgan
Robert C. Morgan is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and visual artist.-Background:Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in contemporary art history from New York University in 1978...
, Voluptuary: An algorithic hermaphornology, Tema Celeste Magazine, volume #93, p. 94
- Bruce Wands, Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson, p. 65
- Robert C. Morgan
Robert C. Morgan is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and visual artist.-Background:Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in contemporary art history from New York University in 1978...
, Laminations of the Soul, Editions Antoine Candau, 1990, pp. 23–30
- Margot Lovejoy
Margot Lovejoy is a digital artist and historian of art and technology. She is Professor of Visual Arts at the State University of New York at Purchase and author of the books "Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age" and "Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media".-...
, Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age Routledge 2004
- Joseph Nechvatal, Immersive Excess in the Apse of Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne département. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
, Technonoetic Arts 3, no3. 2005
- Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics....
, Joseph Nechvatal : Critical Pleasure, Redaktion Frank Berndt, 1996, pp. 10–13
- Mario Costa, Phenomenology of New Tech Arts, Artmedia, Salerno, 2005, p. 6 & pp. 36 – 38
- Dominique Moulon
Dominique Moulon is a historian of art and technology, specializing in French digital art.-Background:Dominique Moulon began his activities as an art historian of new media art and computer art by obtaining a Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique in 1987 from the Ecole Nationale...
, L'art numerique: spectateur-acteuret vie artificielle, Les images numeriques #47-48, 2004, pp. 124–125
- Christine Buci-Glucksmann
Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Professor Emeritus from University of Paris VIII specializing in the aesthetics of the Baroque, Japan and computer art...
, L’art à l’époque virtuel, in Frontières esthétiques de l’art, Arts 8, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004
- Brandon Taylor, Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006, p. 221
- Dominique Moulon
Dominique Moulon is a historian of art and technology, specializing in French digital art.-Background:Dominique Moulon began his activities as an art historian of new media art and computer art by obtaining a Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique in 1987 from the Ecole Nationale...
, http://www.moulon.net/conf3.htm Conférence Report : Media Art in France, Un Point d'Actu, L'Art Numerique, pp. 124–125
- Edmond Couchot, Des Images, du temps et des machines, édité Actes Sud, 2007, pp. 263–264
- Fred Forest
Fred Forest is a French new media artist making use of text, photography, video, installation, the internet and other objects from media networks.-Beginnings:...
, Art et Internet, Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi, pp. 48 –51
- Wayne Enstice & Melody Peters, Drawing: Space, Form, & Expression, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, pp. 312–313
- Ellen K. Levy, Synthetic Lighting: Complex Simulations of Nature, Photography Quarterly (#88) 2004, pp. 7–9
- Marie-Paule Nègre, Des artistes en leur monde, volume 2, la Gazette de l'Hotel Drout, 2008, pp. 82–83
- Corrado Levi, È andata così: Cronaca e critica dell'arte 1970-2008, Joseph Nechvatal intervistato nel suo studio a New York (1985-86), pp. 130-135
- Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A. D....
, Del Atre Analogico al Arte Digital in Arte Digital Y Videoarte, Kuspit, D. ed., Consorcio del Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, pp. 33–34 & pp. 210 – 212
- Robert C. Morgan
Robert C. Morgan is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and visual artist.-Background:Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in contemporary art history from New York University in 1978...
, Nechvatal’s Visionary Computer Virus, in Gruson, L. ed. 1993. Joseph Nechvatal: Computer Virus Project, Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-SenansThe Saline Royale is located at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon, France. The architect was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux , a prominent Parisian architect of the time...
: Fondation Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, pp. 8–15
- Sarah J. Rogers (ed), Body Mécanique: Artistic Explorations of Digital Realms, Columbus, Ohio, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University
- Edward A. Shanken
Edward A. Shanken is an American art historian of 20th and 21st century experimental new media art. His scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has been translated into six languages.-Background:...
, Art and Electronic Media. London: Phaidon, 2009. ISBN 9780714847825, pp. 42, 285, 160
External links
- Joseph Nechvatal's website
- Joseph Nechvatal's Parisian Gallery
- http://www.ubu.com/sound/nechvatal.htmlExamples of Joseph Nechvatal's noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
at UbuWebUbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...
]
- music2eye
- Viractualism defined at CTheory
- example of red viral attack in the computer fine arts collection
- Interview with Joseph Nechvatal
- Nechvatal's Ph.D. dissertation Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances' : A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms
- Artist Statement on Digital Painting and Artificial Life
- http://heyokamagazine.com/ArtListWebsite/ARTList-PAINTINGS.JosephNechvatel.htmJohn LeKay
John LeKay is an English conceptual and installation artist and sculptor, who lives in New York. In 1993, he began to make skulls covered in crystal: he has accused Damien Hirst of copying this and other ideas. He publishes the web site, heyokamagazine.-Life and work:John LeKay was born in London...
interview of Joseph Nechvatal]
- http://www.ubu.com/sound/tellus.htmlTellus Audio Cassette Magazine audio archive at UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...
]
- http://scan.net.au/scan/magazine/display.php?journal_id=56Our Digital Noology: Catherine Perret
Catherine Perret is associate professor of modern and contemporary aesthetics and theory at Nanterre University . She obtained her Ph.D. in philosophy and is known for her work on Walter Benjamin, most notably by her book "Walter Benjamin ou la critique en effet". Dr. Perret was the director of...
in conversation with Joseph Nechvatal]