Joseph Nechvatal

Year of birth, place
1951, Chicago
lives and works in
Paris, France
Biography

Joseph Nechvatal has been involved with omnipresent visual information, computers, and robotics since 1986. Galleries and museums throughout the world have exhibited his computer-robotic supported images and software animations. From 1991 to 1993 he was resident artist at the Louis Pasteur Atelier and at Saline Royale / Ledoux Foundation Computer lab in Arbois where he worked on »Computer Virus Project« – an experiment with computer viruses as creative strategies. In 2002 he expanded this research to the field of artificial, viral life in collaboration with programmer Stéphane Sikora.

Nechvatal earned his PhD in art philosophy and new technology at the Center for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales, Newport, where he coordinated the first international CAiiA research conference »Consciousness Reframed: Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era« (July 1997). The conference focused on new developments in the areas of art, science, technology, and consciousness.

From 1999 to 2013, he teached at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. His book »Towards an Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality (1993–2006)« was published in 2009 by the Edgewise Press. »Immersion into Noise« was published in 2011 by the University of Michigan Library's Scholarly Publishing Office in collaboration with the Open Humanities Press.

[2019]