Joseph Nechvatal
Encyclopedia
Joseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art
digital artist and art theoretician
who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animation
s, often using custom-created computer virus
es.
Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago
. He studied fine art and philosophy
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
, Cornell University
and Columbia University
, where he studied with Arthur Danto
while serving as the archivist
to the minimalist
composer La Monte Young
. From 1979, he exhibited his work in New York City
, primarily at the Brooke Alexander Gallery and Universal Concepts Unlimited. He has also solo exhibited in Paris
, Chicago
, Cologne
, Atlanta, Los Angeles
, Aalst, Belgium
, Youngstown
, Senouillac
, Lund
, Toulouse
, Turin
and Munich
.
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 Colab
and helped establish the non-profit cultural space ABC No Rio
. In 1983 he co-founded the avant-garde
electronic art music audio project Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
. In 1984, Nechvatal began work on an opera called XS: The Opera Opus
(1984-6) with the no wave
musical composer Rhys Chatham
.
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 Pasteur
Atelier in Arbois
, 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 animation
. He exhibited at Documenta
8 in 1987.
In 1999 Nechvatal obtained his Ph.D.
in the philosophy of art and new technology concerning immersive virtual reality at Roy Ascott
's Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales College, Newport, UK (now the Planetary Collegium
at the University of Plymouth
). There he developed his concept of viractualism, a conceptual art
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 viral
artificial life
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 Conway
(particularly Conway's Game of Life
), by the general cellular automata work of John von Neumann
, by the genetic programming
algorithm
s of John Koza
and the auto-destructive art
of Gustav Metzger
.
In 2005 he exhibited Computer Virus Project II works (digital painting
s, digital prints, a digital audio
installation and two live electronic virus-attack art installations) in a solo show called cOntaminatiOns at Château de Linardié
in Senouillac
, France. In 2006 Nechvatal received a retrospective exhibition entitled Contaminations at the Butler Institute of American Art
's Beecher Center for Arts and Technology.
Dr. Nechvatal has also contributed to digital audio
work with his noise music
viral symphOny
, a collaborative sound symphony created by using his computer virus software at the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University
.
Nechvatal teaches art theories of immersive virtual reality and the viractual at the School of Visual Arts
in New York City (SVA). 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. In 2011, his book Immersion Into Noise was published by Open Humanities Press
in conjunction with the University of Michigan
Library's Scholarly Publishing Office.
Joe Lewis wrote:
's Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales College, Newport, UK (now the Planetary Collegium
at the University of Plymouth
). 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 art
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 metaphor
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
art. A key influence on Nechvatal was Gilles Deleuze
's consideration of Baruch Spinoza
- 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 science
, technology
, myth and consciousness
— 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
repertoires for art
. 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 reality
, which is the use of transparent displays worn as see-through glasses on which computer data is projected and layered.
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
. 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 virtual
and the uncomputed corporeal
(actual) world which merge in cybism.
Nechvatal states that co-extensive notions found in cybism have sharp ramifications for art
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 consciousness
. In this sense cybist art research begins where hard science
/technology
ends.
Conceptual art
Conceptual 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 theoretician
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
s, often using custom-created computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
es.
Life and work
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. He studied fine art and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is a public research university located in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1869, SIUC is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system...
, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he studied with Arthur Danto
Arthur Danto
Arthur Coleman Danto Arthur Coleman Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (born January 1, 1924 is an American art critic, and professor of philosophy. He is best known as the influential, long-time art critic for The Nation and for his work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history, though he...
while serving as the archivist
Archivist
An 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 minimalist
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
composer La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
. From 1979, he exhibited his work in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, primarily at the Brooke Alexander Gallery and Universal Concepts Unlimited. He has also solo exhibited in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany 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.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Atlanta, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune 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, Belgium
Aalst, Belgium
Aalst is a city and municipality on the Dender River, 19 miles northwest from Brussels. It is located in the Flemish province of East Flanders in the Denderstreek. The municipality comprises the city of Aalst itself and the villages of Baardegem, Erembodegem, Gijzegem, Herdersem, Hofstade,...
, Youngstown
Youngstown
Youngstown may refer to:A place*Canada**Britannia Youngstown, Edmonton, Alberta**Youngstown, Alberta*United States**Youngstown, Florida**Youngstown, Indiana**Youngstown, New York**Youngstown, Ohio***Youngstown State University...
, Senouillac
Senouillac
Senouillac is a commune in the Tarn department in southern France....
, Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...
, Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
.
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 Colab
Colab
Colab 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 Rio
ABC No Rio
ABC 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-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-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 Magazine
Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
Launched 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 Opus
XS: The Opera Opus
XS: 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 wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
musical composer Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys 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 Pasteur
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
Atelier in Arbois
Arbois
Arbois 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 animation
Animation
Animation 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. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
. He exhibited at Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which 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.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in the philosophy of art and new technology concerning immersive virtual reality at Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott
Roy 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 Collegium
Planetary Collegium
The Planetary Collegium is an international platform for research in art, technology and consciousness, with its hub based in the University of Plymouth, with linked centers in Zurich and Milan...
at the University of Plymouth
University of Plymouth
Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
). There he developed his concept of viractualism, a conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual 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 viral
Viral phenomenon
Viral 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 life
Artificial life
Artificial 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. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
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 Conway
John Horton Conway
John 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 Life
Conway's Game of Life
The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970....
), by the general cellular automata work of John von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, by the genetic programming
Genetic programming
In 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...
algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
s of John Koza
John Koza
John R. Koza is a computer scientist and a former consulting professor at Stanford University, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of genetic programming for the optimization of complex problems. He was a cofounder of Scientific Games Corporation, a company which built computer systems...
and the auto-destructive art
Auto-destructive art
Auto-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 Metzger
Gustav Metzger
Gustav 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 painting
Digital painting
Digital 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 audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
installation and two live electronic virus-attack art installations) in a solo show called cOntaminatiOns at Château de Linardié
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
Senouillac is a commune in the Tarn department in southern France....
, France. In 2006 Nechvatal received a retrospective exhibition entitled Contaminations at the Butler Institute of American Art
Butler Institute of American Art
The 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 audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
work with his noise music
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...
viral symphOny
Viral symphOny
viral 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 University
Alfred University
Alfred University is a small, comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, USA, an hour and a half south of Rochester and two hours southeast of Buffalo. Alfred has an undergraduate population of around 2,000, and approximately 300 graduate students...
.
Nechvatal teaches art theories of immersive virtual reality and the viractual at the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The 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). 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. In 2011, his book Immersion Into Noise was published by Open Humanities Press
Open Humanities Press
is an international open access publishing initiative in the humanities, specializing in critical and cultural theory. OHP's editorial board includes leading scholars and open access advocates such as Alain Badiou, Jonathan Culler, Stephen Greenblatt, Jean-Claude Guédon, J...
in conjunction with the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
Library's Scholarly Publishing Office.
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
Roy 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 Collegium
Planetary Collegium
The Planetary Collegium is an international platform for research in art, technology and consciousness, with its hub based in the University of Plymouth, with linked centers in Zurich and Milan...
at the University of Plymouth
University of Plymouth
Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
). 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 art
Contemporary art
Contemporary 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...
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 metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
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
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
art. A key influence on Nechvatal was Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
's consideration of Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. 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 science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, myth and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
— 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
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
repertoires for art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
. 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 reality
Augmented reality
Augmented reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is...
, 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
Fairfield University is a private, co-educational undergraduate and master's level teaching-oriented 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...
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
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
. 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 virtual
Virtual
The 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 corporeal
Corporeal
Corporeal 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 art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
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 consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. In this sense cybist art research begins where hard science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
/technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
ends.
Further reading
- John Johnston, The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI, MIT Press, 2008, cover
- Donald KuspitDonald KuspitDonald 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....
, The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance - Joline Blais and Jon IppolitoJon IppolitoJon 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 PopperFrank PopperFrank Popper is a historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He has been decorated with the medal of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government...
, From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press, pp. 120–123 - Johanna DruckerJohanna DruckerJohanna 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. MorganRobert C. MorganRobert 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. MorganRobert C. MorganRobert 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 LovejoyMargot LovejoyMargot Lovejoy is a digital artist and historian of art and technology. She is Professor Emerita 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...
, Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age Routledge 2004 - Joseph Nechvatal, Immersive Excess in the Apse of LascauxLascauxLascaux 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 department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
, Technonoetic Arts 3, no3. 2005 - Joseph Nechvatal. Into Noise. Open Humanities Press in conjunction with the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
Library's Scholarly Publishing Office. Ann Arbor. 2011 - Johanna DruckerJohanna DruckerJohanna 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 MoulonDominique MoulonDominique Moulon is a historian of art and technology, specializing in French digital art. He is the author of the book Art contemporain nouveaux médias.-Background:...
, L'art numerique: spectateur-acteuret vie artificielle, Les images numeriques #47-48, 2004, pp. 124–125 - Christine Buci-GlucksmannChristine Buci-GlucksmannChristine 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, CollageCollageA 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 MoulonDominique MoulonDominique Moulon is a historian of art and technology, specializing in French digital art. He is the author of the book Art contemporain nouveaux médias.-Background:...
, http://www.moulon.net/conf3.htm Conférence Report : Media Art in France, Un Point d'Actu, L'Art Numerique, pp. 124–125 - Edmond CouchotEdmond Couchot-Life and work:Couchot is a Doctor of aesthetics in the visual arts. From 1982-2000 he headed the department of Arts and Technologies of the Image at the University Paris VIII. He continues to take part in speculative and hands-on study of digital imagery and virtual reality at University Paris...
, Des Images, du temps et des machines, édité Actes Sud, 2007, pp. 263–264 - Fred ForestFred ForestFred Forest is a French new media artist making use of video, photography, the printed press, mail, radio, television, telephone, telematics, and the internet in a wide range of installations, performances, and public interventions that explore both the ramifications and potential of media space...
, 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 KuspitDonald KuspitDonald 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....
, 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. MorganRobert C. MorganRobert 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-SenansRoyal Saltworks at Arc-et-SenansThe Saline Royale is a historical building at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs, eastern France. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon. 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. ShankenEdward A. ShankenEdward A. Shanken is an American art historian, whose work focuses on the entwinement of art, science and technology, with a focus on experimental new media art and visual culture. His scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has been translated into six...
, Art and Electronic Media. London: Phaidon, 2009. ISBN 9780714847825, pp. 42, 285, 160
External links
- Joseph Nechvatal's website
- Joseph Nechvatal's Parisian Gallery
- Examples of Joseph Nechvatal's noise music at UbuWebUbuWebUbuWeb 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
- Nechvatal's YouTube video channel
- Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine audio archive at UbuWebUbuWebUbuWeb 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:...
- Our Digital Noology: Catherine PerretCatherine PerretCatherine 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 the...
in conversation with Joseph Nechvatal