pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (2021)
Joseph Nechvatal
43:13 minutes
cover image caption:
Joseph Nechvatal, le jugement de dieu viral (2004) virus-modeled a-life digital
maquette, size variable
Movements
1 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (grOundless stOrm) 2:05
2 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (tempête de merde) 2:05
3 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (la nausée) 2:10
4 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (wOrld whirlwind) 5:21
5 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (cOsmic dOOr) 4:54
6 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (herOic cOjOnes) 9:24
7 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (weep nO mOre) 2:37
8 pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (ars lOnga vita brevis) 15:27
In early 2021, Joseph Nechvatal picked up and read again Antonin
Artaud’s prophetic text The Theatre and the Plague that Artaud originally
presented as a performance-lecture on April 6, 1933 at the Sorbonne. That
text is now an essential element in Artaud’s salient book The Theater and its
Double. In The Theatre and the Plague, Artaud develops the foundations of his
Theater of Cruelty by establishing an analogy between the rupture of the
civilizational order caused by the plague and the convulsive passions
triggered by the virulence of his transgressive theatrical poetics.
Re-reading the text within the context of the 2020-2021 viral pandemic,
Nechvatal created the 43:13 minute long, eight movement, audio suite pour
finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague in which he remixed aspects
of his virus-modeled a-life noise music composition viral symphOny (2008)
with compressed and transformed and superimposed segments of Artaud’s
radio play Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu (To Have Done with the
Judgment of God ) that was recorded in late-November 1947.
Nechvatal’s audio art composition pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral
symphOny plague can be considered a brother suite to the OrlandO et la tempête
viral symphOny redux suite that he created with Andrew Deutsch in 2020. It
too revisits virus-modelled artificial life audio material extracted from
the viral symphOny project, integrating an anonymous reading of the
novel Orlando, written by Virginia Woolf in 1928.
credits for
viral symphOny ~ movement 1 ~ the enthroning (2006)
Joseph Nechvatal : original concept viral structures
Stephane Sikora : C++ programming
Andrew Deutsch : meso and macro structures
Matthew Underwood : nano, micro, meso and macro structures
Steven Mygind Pedersen : IEA project technician
credits for
Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu (To Have Done with the Judgment of God)
The Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu sounds, now in the public domain, was sourced by
Nechvatal from the 1996 Sub Rosa CD Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu that was given
to him by avant-garde art historian Marc Dachy, who wrote the liner notes for it. Pour
en finir avec le jugement de Dieu was commissioned by the RDF (French Radio Broadcasting)
but censored the day before its planned broadcast, on February 1, 1948, by RDF
director, Wladimir Porché. Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu texts were read by Maria
Casarès, Roger Blin, Paule Thévenin and Antonin Artaud. The accompaniment of
screams, drumbeats and xylophone were recorded by Artaud.
pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague (2021) is dedicated to
the memories of Antonin Artaud and Marc Dachy