American artist Joseph Nechvatal will present, in a solo show at Galerie Richard, a series of new paintings entitled nOise anusmOs, some accompanied by a digital video.

The nOise anusmOs exhibition will take place from April 12th till May 26th, 2012 in the New York gallery. Following the opening on April 12th, Nechvatal will present the world premier concert of the immersive surround-sound re-mastered version of his viral symphOny at 9:30 at Harvestworks (596 Broadway, #602 New York, NY 10012). nOise anusmOs and viral symphOny are being presented in association with the recent publication of Joseph Nechvatal’s new book Immersion Into Noise.

The theme of nOise anusmOs is a linkage of the human retina and anus to the cosmos. nOise anusmOs suggests that this includes the connectivity of the noisy universe with the inner human in a spirit of imaginative artistic audacity and erotic spirituality. In nOise anusmOs the viewer can imaginatively re-place him or herself within a Dionysian flux of cosmological nature. Other influences on this show are American transcendental black metal music and avant-garde saxophone music.

Joseph Nechvatal has worked with electronic images and computer technology since 1986. His computer-assisted paintings turn images of the human body into pictorial units that are then transformed by digital viruses. This contamination of the tradition of painting on canvas by new digital technology thus creates an interface between the virtual and the real, which Nechvatal calls the viractual.

It was back in 1991, while working at the Louis Pasteur workshop in Arbois and at the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans (France) that Nechvatal and Jean-Philippe Massonie first developed a computer program for digital viral attacks on Nechvatal’s images. In 2001 Nechvatal and Stéphane Sikora combined the initial digital virus project with the principles of artificial life, in other words creating systems of synthesis that reproduces the behavioral characteristics of living systems. In previous series of paintings, the fermentation of artificial life was introduced into an image. This population of active viruses then grew, reproduced, and propagated within the space of the picture. The artist then chose and froze and manipulated a specific moment that was then turned into a painting. Were the artist to not interfere, the process of propagation would continue until the complete destruction of the original picture.

Joseph Nechvatal has recently published two books : Towards an Immersive Intelligence: Essay on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality 1993-2006 published in 2009 by Edgewise Publication and Immersion Into Noise published in 2011 by the University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office in conjunction with Open Humanities Press. He is a Ph.D. professor at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City.