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| JODI on Tue, 3 Jul 2001 22:11:39 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> | The HISTORY of TECHNOLOGICALLY-ASSISTED ART SINCE WORLD WAR Iand YOUR appropriate place in this history | |
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| The HISTORY of TECHNOLOGICALLY-ASSISTED ART SINCE WORLD WAR I and |
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| YOUR |
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| appropriate place in this history |
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| This message is confidential and for you only. |
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| Frank Popper has been contracted by M.I.T. Press to write a |
| history of |
| technologically-assisted art beginning with World War 1 and I have |
| been |
| asked by Frank to help him do so. My silent contribution to the |
| book |
| concerns my helping choose contemporary colleagues which will |
| represent |
| digitally-assisted art at the end of the 20th C and the start of |
| the new |
| millennium. I have placed you on this list. |
| |
| |
| As you are a living being, we want to give you the privilege of |
| supplying |
| the information on yourself and your work which you think most |
| relevant. In |
| other words, you can practically write your own entry in this |
| important |
| history book or at least assemble it from what others have written |
| about |
| you. What I am requesting from you are around 1500 words written |
| in the 3rd |
| person describing your evolution and current work. You may stress |
| one |
| particular work which we will try to include as an illustration of |
| the text. |
| Please understand that Frank will reserve the right to change your |
| text, but |
| that he will consider it primary. |
| |
| The current working title of the book is "A HISTORY of |
| TECHNOLOGICALLY-ASSISTED ART SINCE WORLD WAR I" |
| |
| Prior books by Frank Popper are: |
| Popper, F. 1968. Origins and Development of Kinetic Art. London: |
| Studio |
| Vista |
| Popper, F. 1975. Art - Action and Participation. New York: New |
| York |
| University |
| Popper, F. 1993. Art of the Electronic Age. London: Thames and |
| Hudson |
| |
| |
| |
| Please see below the entry Frank himself has written on me and my |
| work and |
| please try to adhere to this format. |
| |
| |
| |
| Also please place your work into one of the 4 categories here (I |
| know you |
| may have to chose one aspect of your work over the others): |
| 1) ENDURING DIGITAL-BASED WORK |
| 2) MULTIMEDIA - OFF LINE WORK |
| 3) MULTIM.DIA - ON LINE WORK |
| 4) INTERACTIVE and/or VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS |
| |
| |
| Does this opportunity appeal to you and can we count on you supply |
| us with |
| this English text soon? If so the text should be emailed to me at: |
| joseph_nechvatal {AT} hotmail.com. If you send it as an attached word |
| file be |
| aware that I am on MAC format n but in general paste it into an |
| email. OK? |
| |
| Yours in increasing bifurcations, |
| Dr. Joseph Nechvatal |
| Paris/New York |
| |
| email: joseph_nechvatal {AT} hotmail.com |
| |
| home page: http://www.nechvatal.net |
| |
| home: 143 Ludlow Street (14) New York, NY 10002 USA & 114, Rue de |
| Vaugirard |
| 75006 Paris FRANCE |
| |
| |
| |
| *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* |
| |
| PS: Here is the outline of the book as it now stands: |
| |
| INTRODUCTION |
| |
| CHAPTER I. Historical antecedents (1920-1960) |
| |
| CHAPTER II. Technological Art and Artsts (1960-1990) |
| |
| CHAPTER III. Digital-assisted Art and Artists Now |
| |
| CHAPTER IV. Multimedia Off Line Artists Now |
| |
| CHAPTER V. Multimedia On Line Artists Now |
| |
| CHAPTER VI. INTERACTIVE and/or VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS Artists Now |
| |
| CHAPTER VII. Theoretical considerations |
| |
| CONCLUSION. A resum of the key developments, aesthetic currents |
| and |
| paradigm shifts in the 20th century art that underpin contemporary |
| digital-assisted art with some basic human issues addressed here. |
| |
| |
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| Please try to adhere to this format: |
| |
| |
| Joseph Nechvatal, originally a painter and performance artist, has |
| worked |
| with ubiquitous electronic information and computer-robots since |
| 1986. His |
| computer-robotic assisted paintings and computer animations have |
| led to a |
| particularly original research commitment, the Computer Virus |
| Project, an |
| experiment with computer viruses as a creative stratagem. |
| |
| One way of looking at Nechvatalis development since his first |
| shows in New |
| York Cityis alternative spaces in the 1970s would be in terms of |
| the various |
| media with which he had chosen to work, making major shifts in |
| presentation |
| without markedly altering his artis complex structure based |
| primarily on |
| telecommunications and its technology. However, the succession of |
| pencil |
| drawing, photocopying, photography, sculpture and computer-robotic |
| assisted |
| painting only tells part of the story. In fact, in order to |
| understand |
| fully Nechvatalis most recent artistic options one has to make |
| allusion to |
| Nechvatalis progressive attitude towards technology in general and |
| his |
| existential commitments. |
| |
| In 1983, Nechvatal wrote: "Images of mass annihilation wrought by |
| technology |
| now provide the major context for our art and our lives. With |
| profoundly |
| disturbed psyches, modern people encounter their existential fear |
| in the |
| atom, for when technology relieved much of manis fear of nature it |
| replaced |
| that fear with one of technology itself". Three years later, |
| Joseph |
| Nechvatal accomplished the first decisive step in his career by |
| adopting |
| frankly the latest infomatic technology into his works before |
| introducing |
| from 1993 onwards the biological/medical/aesthetic concept of the |
| computer |
| virus as a leading idea into his art work. |
| |
| Before analyzing in more detail this option let me make an |
| allusion to |
| another aspect of Nechvatalis aesthetic commitment. He himself has |
| stated |
| that the focus of his painting is the interface between the |
| virtual and the |
| actual, what he terms the "viractual". The basic premise of his |
| computer-assisted robotic paintings is the exploration of |
| "omnijectivity", |
| the metaphysical concept stemming from the discovery of quantum |
| physics |
| which teaches that mind and matter are inextricably linked under |
| the |
| influence of todayis high-frequency, electronic, computerized |
| environment. |
| |
| For Nechvatal, art is then a matter of inventing aesthetic |
| sensations linked |
| to concepts of technology, a mental prosthetic. And the function |
| of this |
| prosthetic art is to create by extenuation different |
| technological-aesthetic |
| percepts. Thus his art is about a personal investigation into the |
| conditions |
| of virtuality - conditions which are not quite historically |
| assessable yet. |
| |
| Nechvatalis highly original computer virus project first exhibited |
| at the |
| Saline Royale in Arc et Senans, France in Nov ember 1993, is |
| closely linked |
| to the spread of biological viruses, notably HIV. The artist has |
| digitized |
| his pictorial work, adjusting the images on the computer screen |
| before |
| introducing a computer virus unto the iconographical database. The |
| images |
| are then subject to alteration. |
| |
| At the end of the year 2000 Nechvatal took a further important |
| step. At that |
| moment he finished the first phase of the reworked Computer Virus |
| Project |
| and brought it into the realm of artificial life, i.e. into a |
| synthetic |
| system that exhibits behaviors characteristic of natural living |
| systems - in |
| this case viruses. The new project actively propagates viral |
| attacks on |
| Nechvatalis image-files from the "ec-satyricon 2000 (enhanced) + |
| bodies in |
| the bit-stream (compliant)" series in real time and so, one might |
| say, |
| address some fundamental questions about the nature of life and |
| death by |
| simulating life/death-like phenomena on the computer. Here viral |
| algorithms |
| - based on a viral biological model - are used to define |
| evolutionary |
| processes which are then applied to the image-files from |
| Nechvatalis |
| "ec-satyricon 2000 (enhanced) + bodies in the bit-stream |
| (compliant)" show |
| which were exhibited in New York, at Universal Concepts Unlimited, |
| in 2000. |
| |
| In Nechvatalis virus project, essentially a grid composed of |
| colored cells, |
| each virus is localized on a cell and can perceive the color of |
| the cells |
| close to it. Each virus has an energy level and at each turn a |
| small amount |
| of energy is lost. If the energy of a virus is too low then the |
| virus dies. |
| A virus has its own program that defines its behavior and each |
| program is |
| initially randomly generated, employing a user-defined instruction |
| set and |
| these instructions govern the chromatic, luminous and resonant |
| behavior of |
| the virus. |
| |
| Like his earlier computer robot-assisted paintings of the |
| mid-1980s, |
| Nechvatalis current work creates immersive saturated space |
| dominated by |
| pattern. Fragments of soft human form are more clearly visible |
| now, emerging |
| from patterns of text overlay. Here the lines provide a sharp and |
| vigorous |
| opposition to the deterioration of the virtual body through viral |
| infection. |
| Such recent paintings as Viral attack: transmissioN, Viral attack: |
| the |
| cOnquest Of the hOrrible, Viral attack: regretS or Viral attack: |
| piTy |
| express fully Nechvatalis existential as well as his artistic |
| commitment. |
| |
| The gene general Fin-de-Si cle ornamental excess of Nechvatalis |
| work gives |
| to us a metaphor for the current computational conditions of |
| seeing - and |
| perhaps for our expansive conditions of technological-aesthetic |
| being. In |
| the rising and collapsing of alternative visualizations and |
| unordered |
| revelations encountered in his work, the circuits of the mind find |
| an |
| occupation exactly congruent with todayis techno-informatic |
| structures. In |
| fact, if Nechvatalis preoccupation with fears, mental anguish, |
| illness and |
| death has never entirely disappeared from his projects their |
| artistically |
| prospective realization within an up-to-date technological |
| framework allows |
| him to come to terms with present-day lifeis complexity. |
| |
| Frank Popper, 2001, Paris |
| |
| |
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| Return-Path: <joseph_nechvatal {AT} hotmail.com> |
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| Received: from hotmail.com (f6.law14.hotmail.com [64.4.21.6]) |
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| Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft |
| SMTPSVC; |
| Received: from 195.68.93.230 by lw14fd.law14.hotmail.msn.com with |
| HTTP; |
| X-Originating-IP: [195.68.93.230] |
| From: "Joseph Nechvatal" <joseph_nechvatal {AT} hotmail.com> |
| To: 404 {AT} jodi.org, jodi {AT} jodi.org |
| Subject: The HISTORY of TECHNOLOGICALLY-ASSISTED ART SINCE WORLD |
| WAR I and YOUR appropria |
| Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 20:33:02 -0000 |
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| Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed |
| Message-ID: <F6xMoMpXc21NgqJfhUb0001e15d {AT} hotmail.com> |
| X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Jun 2001 20:33:02.0989 (UTC) |
| FILETIME=[DF4FFBD0:01C0F835] |
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