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.[16]
Nechvatal has also created a
noise music work called viral symphOny, a collaborative sound symphony created by using his computer virus software at the Institute for Electronic Arts at
Alfred University.[17][18][19] In 2021 Pentiments released Nechvatal's retrospective audio cassette called Selected Sound Works (1981-2021) and in 2022 his The Viral Tempest, a double vinyl LP of new audio work.[20]
From 1999 to 2013, Nechvatal taught 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.[21] 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.[22]
Viractualism
Viractualism is an
art theory concept developed by Nechvatal in 1999[23][24] from Ph.D. research [25] Nechvatal conducted at the University of Wales College. There he developed his concept of the viractual, which strives to create an interface between the actual and the virtual.[26]
Footnotes
^
abcSara Pendergast; Tom Pendergast (2002). Contemporary artists (5th ed.). Detroit, MI: St. James Press.
ISBN1-55862-488-0.
OCLC47869983.
^Christiane Paul, in her book Digital Art, discusses Nechvatal's concept of viractualism on page 58. One of the images she chooses to illustrate that section of the book is Nechvatal's painting entitled the birth Of the viractual (2001). Joe Lewis, in the March 2003 issue of
Art in America (pp.123-124), discusses the viractual in his review Joseph Nechvatal at Universal Concepts Unlimited. John Reed in
ArtforumWeb 3-2004 Critic's Picks discusses the concept in his piece #1 Joseph Nechvatal.
Frank Popper also writes about the viractual concept in his book From Technological to Virtual Art on page 122.
^The title of the Ph.D. dissertation is "Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances : A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms". A url introduction to the thesis, entitled "Frame and Excess", can be read on-line and the entire thesis downloaded in PDF at:
[2]
Edmond Couchot, Des Images, du temps et des machines, édité Actes Sud, 2007, pp. 263–264
Fred Forest, 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, 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