Joseph Nechvatal

Art rétinal revisité: histoire de l’oeil

at

Paris
 press release
A pioneer in the development in digital art, Joseph Nechvatal will present, in a second solo
show in the gallery, a series of new paintings, most of which are accompanied by a digital
animation.

Art Rétinal Revisité: Histoire de l’Oeil will take place from September 4 th through September
29th, 2010 and will invite the spectator to refect on the importance of visual noise in the
process of creation.

The Retinal Art Revisited series consists of 19 digitally assisted paintings (10 of which have
accompanying animations). The animations that are joined with paintings show a computer
virus eating the same image as that which is on the painting. This approach began with work
in the 2004 Digital Sublime show at MOCA in Taipei.

In Retinal Art Revisited, a group of painting-animations portray the retina of the human eye,
combined with painting-animations of the human rectum. Another group of paintings
address the peculiar phenomenon of shadows.

With the title of the exhibition, Joseph Nechvatal differs with Marcel Duchamp’s
 preconception that intelligent art cannot also be beautiful to the eye.

Joseph Nechvatal has worked with electronic images and information technology since
1986. His computer-assisted paintings turn images of the human body into pictorial units
that are then transformed by computer virus-like software. This activity represents the
contamination of the tradition of painting on canvas by new digital technology,
subsequently creating an interface between the virtual and the real that Nechvatal calls the
viractual.

It was in 1991, while working at the Louis Pasteur Atelier in Arbois and at the Royal
Saltworks of Arc et Senans that Nechvatal and Jean-Philippe Massonie developed a
program of information technology viruses. In 2001 Nechvatal and Stéphane Sikora
combined the initial virus project with the principles of artifcial life, creating systems of
synthesis that reproduce the behavioural characteristics of living systems. In his previous
digital paintings, an artifcial life virus was introduced into an image. This population of
active viruses then grew, reproduced and propagated within the space of the picture. The
artist then froze a moment that he later created as a painting. Were the artist not to
interfere, the process of propagation would continue until the original picture would be
completely destroyed.

The notion of visual noise that not only strengthens unique personal powers of imagination
and critical thinking, but also is a source of creation in itself, is a key element in the
understanding of the new series of works exhibited at Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard.

Joseph Nechvatal’s work is in many major private and institutional collections around the
world. An interview of the artist will accompany the exhibition.

*****

Pionnier dans le développement de l’art numérique, Joseph Nechvatal présentera à la Galerie Jean-Luc
& Takako Richard, lors de sa deuxième exposition personnelle, une série de nouvelles œuvres, la plupart
accompagnées de vidéos numériques.

Art rétinal revisité : histoire de l’œil aura lieu du 4 septembre au 29 septembre 2010 et invitera
les spectateurs à réféchir sur l’importance de la relation entre le son et l’image dans le
procédé de création.

Art rétinal revisité : histoire de l’œil offre aux spectateurs 15 peintures assistées par ordinateur
(dont 10 sont accompagnées de vidéos). Les vidéos attachées aux peintures projettent un
virus informatique qui dévore peu à peu la même image que l’on retrouve sur le tableau.
Cette approche est relativement nouvelle, cependant on avait pu voir une première version de
ce travail à l’exposition « Digital sublime » au MOCA de Taipei, en 2004.

Art rétinal revisité consiste en une série de peintures-animations représentant la rétine de l’œil
humain combinées à d’autres images qui montrent le rectum humain. Un autre groupe de
peintures traite du phénomène particulier des ombres.

De par le titre de cette exposition, Joseph Nechvatal s’oppose à la conception de Marcel

Duchamp qui préconisait que l’art intelligent ne peut être esthétiquement plaisant.
Nechvatal travaille avec les images électroniques et la technologie informatique depuis 1986.
Ses peintures assistées par ordinateur traduisent des images du corps humain en unités
picturales que les virus informatiques transforment. La contamination de la tradition de la
peinture sur toile par les nouvelles technologies digitales crée ainsi une interface entre le
virtuel et le réel, ce que Joseph Nechvatal appelle le « viractuel ».

C’est en 1991, lors d’une résidence à l’atelier Louis Pasteur à Arbois et à la Saline Royale d’Arc
et Senans, qu’il a développé avec Jean-Philippe Massonie un programme de virus
informatiques. En 2001, Joseph Nechvatal et Stéphane Sikora ont conjugué le projet initial de
virus informatiques avec les principes de la vie artifcielle, c’est-à-dire la création de systèmes
de synthèse qui reprennent les caractéristiques comportementales des systèmes vivants. Des
ferments de vie artifcielle sont introduits dans une image. Cette population de virus actifs se
développe, se reproduit et se propage dans l’espace pictural. L’artiste fxe un moment qu’il
transforme ensuite en une peinture. S’il n’intervenait pas, le processus de propagation
continuerait jusqu’à détruire complètement l’image initiale.

L’idée de bruit ne renforce pas seulement le pouvoir personnel de l’imagination et la pensée

critique, mais est aussi une source de création intrinsèque, qui est l’élément clé dans la
compréhension des nouvelles œuvres exposées à la Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard.

Le travail de Joseph Nechvatal se trouve exposé dans des collections privées et des
institutions du monde entier. Un entretien de l’artiste accompagne l’exposition.

*****

4 Questions from Galerie Richard about Art Rétinal Revisité: Histoire de l'Oeil

Galerie Richard 1. Art Rétinal Revisité: Histoire de l'Oeil - why did you choose this and not
another title and theme for the exhibition? What message are you sending through this
exhibition? And what is your ultimate goal with Art Rétinal Revisité?

Joseph Nechvatal: Clowns are rarely asked to explain their jokes and poets are never expected
to explain their poems. Likewise I usually abhor these kinds of questions, but in this case I
will attempt to oblige you.

Speaking most generally: the body of work brought together under the title Art Rétinal
Revisité: Histoire de l'Oeil came into existence through a theoretical investigation into the role
of noise in culture. This research adapted the audio noise understanding of noise music and
applies it to visual art, architecture, and consciousness in a new book I have written entitled
Immersion Into Noise (published by Open Humanities Press). A digital version of the book
Immersion Into Noise is being included in the sale of the painting/animation assemblages
that will be exhibited in this show.
 The question I wish to put forth with this exhibition is: On a planet that is increasingly
technologically linked and globally mediated, how might visual noises break and reconnect
in distinctive and productive ways within practices located in the world of art and thought?

For many, if anything is representative of the art of today it is ambivalence. Ostensibly,

everything today is permitted in art – and thus nothing is necessary. As a result, art and
entertainment, it is said, have merged. Perhaps surprisingly, for me, the denial of this merger
and the answer to the question posed above is to be found within the challenge of a noise
style that strengthens unique personal powers of imagination and critical thinking through a
beautiful self-perception. So in a way, this show is about looking at looking.

This approach was based on my observation that a noisy cultural constructivism is in the
process of confronting unconnected ideal models of entertainment with information
processing and self-re-organization through the digitalization of knowledge. I have tried to
explore such questions through the connection between noise and violence and noise and the
sacred.

Noise may break some connections, but connections will always continue to grow in other
directions; creating new thoughts and new affects. The notion of noise as creation itself is thus
an important one that needs to be reconsidered and reevaluated. The viral animations
coupled with the canvases represent this function.

More specifcally: Art Rétinal Revisité (Retinal Art Revisited) points quite obviously to Marcel
Duchamp’s position that art that appeals to the intelligence (the mind) cannot as well appeal
to the eye. I disagree with him here. Intelligent art need not be anti-retinal. Beautiful woman
can be incredibly smart, as well.

Georges Bataille’s theories of excess are a key reference in my noise vision book sketched out
above. That is why I honor his erotic fction Histoire de l'Oeil (Story of the Eye) in the subtitle
of the exhibition.

For Bataille, excess is the non-hypocritical human condition, which he took as being roused
non-productive expenditure (excess) entangled with exhilaration. Excess is, for Bataille, not so
much a surplus as an effective passage beyond established limits, an impulse which exceeds
even its own threshold. Engaged sight works that way as well, as there is always something
more to see.
 Galerie Richard 2. The works you're planning to exhibit are quite diverse (the eye and the
other image that remains ambiguous - are they lips? or a rectum?) - and what is the 'fl
conducteur' between them? Why did you choose the lip/rectum images?

Joseph Nechvatal: Yes. The eyes are bracketed and centered by paintings-animations that
investigate the lips of the human rectum. I recognized that the eye was the highest placed
input valve on the human desiring-machine – and the rectum the lowest. And I wanted to
even them out. I wanted to give them equal value. Both are controlled by psychic-infuenced
sphincters.

Galerie Richard 3. How do these works "revisit retinal art" to quote the title?

Joseph Nechvatal: They call to mind and make fun of Marcel Duchamp’s prejudice that smart
art cannot also be beautiful to the eye.

Galerie Richard 4. For the September exhibition you have chosen to create a video for each
painting and exhibit them together. This is a rather new approach. Could you explain how
you came to this decision?

Joseph Nechvatal: Yes. I paired a large painting with a large projection of the computer virus
project eating the same image that is on the painting frst in 2004 at the Digital Sublime show
at MOCA in Taipei. This is an application of my viractual position - a position that has been
put forward in my book Towards an Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age
of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality that was published by Edgewise Press in New York
in 2009.

*****
Installation Views
 *****

Works in the show

 black squint, 2009
16 x 20 inches, 40 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation

expOrt, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 windOw sphincter, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 retinal redux, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 mOdest libertine, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 fleur de lys rectal, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 chimera, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 impOrt, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation

scOpOphilia, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 rOsebud, even, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 blackeye, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas and screen with digital animation
 ignudiO gustO majOr, 2003
66 x 120 inches, 168 x 305 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas

Out Of shadOw : disavOwel , 2009

 20 x 60 inches, 50 x 150 cm (triptych)
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas

Out Of shadOw : Our veinatiOn, 2009

16 x 24 inches, 41 x 61 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas
Out of shadOw : dark side Out , 2009
20 x 40 inches, 50 x 100 cm (triptych)
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas

Out of shadOw : phantOm, 2009

20 x 40 inches, 50 x 100 cm (triptych)
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas
 Double Entity Identity, 1986
51 x 77 inches, 130 x 195 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas
pOrnOlogic Overflow rtO, 2005
66 x 88 inches, 168 x 224 cm (diptych)
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas











 
les invisibles, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas





 masquerade, 2009
20 x 20 inches, 50 x 50 cm
computer-robotic assisted acrylic on canvas



*****



Special
live
projection
event
of
viral symphOny

with
a
concert
by
Rhys
Chatham

 
http://www.galerierichard.com/

www.nechvatal.net