Joseph Nechvatal // The Viral Tempest 2xLP+BOOKLET

This is a two-disc record released by American post-conceptual digital artist Joseph Nechvatal in January 2023 from Chicago's experimental label Pentiments.Comes with full color booklet and DL code.

Below is a commentary by the label.

"We are proud to present post-conceptual artist and author Joseph Nechvatal's latest audio double LP, The Viral Tempest. The first in collaboration with Andrew Deutsch, OrlandO et la tempete viral ``symphOny redux suite'' plays an anonymous reading of Virginia Woolf's ``Orlando'' and the audio material of the first movement of her 2 work ``viral symphOny: the enthrOning,'' an artificial life modeled on a virus. It is used as a characteristic of the sound.The second song, pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague, is a sibling suite to the first song, and is instead a recorded performance of Antonin Artaud's radio play To Have Done with the Judgment of God, which Nechvatal deconstructs, intertwines, He uses it as a new material, a radically changed material, as the sonic figure used in his viral symphOny, a living fabric.

While Nekvatar's original viral symphony recordings can be referenced as an advance statement on open-ended processes and immersion in detrital dynamism, the brothers' suite is a series of viral models that pair with these audio suites. The rhizomeal rediscovery of identities and figures in this dynamic space, characterized prominently in his philosophy of life painting, and in general his noise art in general, can be understood more clearly.Folding the dissubjectified themes of Woolf and Artaud into the hyper-personal, infinite space of chaotic viral energy, in Nekvatar's words, "One of the most important characteristics is the vibrating A sense of enveloping existence within a field of shroud, but the intertwined embossed shroud reorients us in open vibrancy as opposed to closed, routine, visual and audio signals. It reflects processes and practices.The special issue of gender fluidity, evoked by Woolfian's character Orlando and his/her male/female supernatural condition, is a supplement that Nekvatar embraces and reinforces in social and environmental storms. It is transformed into a sensible material.

Radical fluidity and immanence, and a commitment to a noise-oriented rethinking of the organless Drozoguattarian body, are driven by relays of relativized intensities, changes in speed and affect, and creative and It equally faithfully depicts the more immediate sonic character of a work full of subversive reconstructions and transitions into different genres (spoken word, computer music, noise, shoegaze, ambient).Through these myriad synergies of audio, visual, and textual works, Nekvatar offers new and expanded ways of theorizing and experiencing the unstable relationship between the cultural-political and the sensuous. Ultimately, I aim to present it to the viewer.It is one that chooses to confound and problematize with imaginative pleasure, rather than reduce, parse, and codify it with a united allegiance.Counterintuitively, I have come to believe that this style of cultural noise is the art we need today.Because it doesn't succumb to the need for readily readable spectacle.In fact, it restores the responsibility of art's resistance. "

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Includes DL code.
Edition of 200. Comes in a full color gatefold jacket.
Includes a 11x11" 12-page full color exhibition catalog documenting the paintings featured in Nechvatal's 2020 Orlando et la tempête art exhibition at Galerie Richard (Paris) + 8.5x11" insert featuring an interview with Nechvatal by SKG Noise Admiration regarding his art of noise philosophy . 

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Text by Pentiments:

" In tandem with our publishing of his decades-spanning cassette retrospective Selected Sound Works (1981-2021), Pentiments is honored to present The Viral Tempest, a double LP collection of two recent audio works by post-conceptual artist and writer Joseph Nechvatal. first piece in collaboration with Andrew Deutsch, OrlandO et la tempete viral symphOny redux suite, uses an anonymous reading of Virginia Woolf's Orlando as a type of recurring sonic signature around which the virus-modeled artificial life audio material from the first movement of Nechvatal's 2006 piece The second piece, pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague, serves as a brother suite to the first and instead uses Antonin Artaud's controversial recorded performance of his radio play To Have Done with the Judgment of God as the sonic figure which Nechvatal deconstructs, convolutes and weaves as a new and radically transformed material into the returning l Living fabric of his viral symphOny.

While one can refer to Nechvatal's original viral symphOny recordings as a preceding statement on open-ended process and immersion into detrital dynamism, this pair of sibling suites can be understood more specifically as elaborating on the rhizomatic re-conceptualizations of identity and figuration within this dynamic space that feature prominently in the series of virus modeled a-life paintings paired with these audio suites and, generally, in his philosophy of noise art. Artaud into a supra-individual, boundless space of chaotic viral energy reflects a process and practice, to quote Nechvatal, "one of the most important characteristics [...] is its sense of encompassing being within a field of vibratory enshrouding—but an intertwined embossed shrouding that places being at odds with closed, cliché, visual-audio signals and resituates us within open vibrancy." The particular matter of gender fluidity, invoked by the Woolfian character of Orlando and his/her preternatural condition of man-become -woman, is transfigured into supplementary sensual material which Nechvatal embraces and intensifies further within the context of societal and environmental storms, for in hiswords, "Storms have no gender and mean full-blown fluidity."

A turn towards radical flux and immanence and a noise-oriented rethinking of the Deleuzoguattarian body without organs describes just as faithfully the more immediate sonic character of the works, replete as they are with relays of relativized intensities, variations in speed and affect, creative- Destructive reconfigurations of language and signs, the passing through of various genre-becomings (spoken word, computer music, noise, shoegaze, ambient), and so on. Through this teething synergy of his audio, visual and textual works, Nechvatal ultimately aims to present the beholder with a new and more expansive way of theorizing and experiencing the fraught relationship between the cultural-political and the sensate, one that chooses to perplex and problematize with imaginative pleasure rather than reduce, parse and codify through cohesive allegiances. , 'I have come, counter-intuitively, to see the style of cultural noise as the necessary art of today—precisely because it does not cave into the supposed need for immediately legible spectacle. Indeed, it restores art's responsibility of resistance.'"

Artist: Joseph Nechvatal

Label: Pentiments