Vintage DB 102: Joseph Nechvatal’s Digital Artwork, DB 3
Delving deep into the archives this week, we come upon the eye-catching works of visual artist Joseph Nechvatal. With their provocative patterns, sensuous overlays, and somatic color palette, these pieces are intriguing enough as it is — but there’s something else that really separates them from other DB artwork. Nechvatal’s paintings and animations are computer-robotic assisted, meaning that he uses a homemade computer virus to create his designs and robotic spray guns to realize the creations on canvas. Take a peek at his works featured all the way back in DB 3, Fall/Winter 2001–2002, and you’ll see why this artist continues making unparalleled art still today.
Since 1986 Joseph Nechvatal has worked with ubiquitous electronic visual information, computers and computer-robotics. His computer-robotic assisted paintings and computer software animations are shown regularly in galleries and museums throughout the world. From 1991–1993 he worked as artist-in-resident at the Louis Pasteur Atelier and the Saline Royale / Ledoux Foundation’s computer lab in Arbois, France on The Computer Virus Project: an experiment with computer viruses as a creative stratagem. From 1999 to 2013, Nechvatal taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City (SVA). His book of essays 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. In 2011 his book Immersion Into Noise was published by the University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office in conjunction with the Open Humanities Press. To view his full body of work you can visit Nechvatal on the web at eyewithwings.net
