viral symphOny is a collaborative electronic noise music symphony created by the postconceptual artist Joseph Nechvatal. It was created between the years 2006 and 2008 using custom artificial life C++ software based on the viral phenomenon model. It is 1 hour and 40 minutes in length. The first movement of viral symphOny - and raw viral field material - was released in 2006 as a CD by The Institute for Electronic Arts in Alfred, New York. A low resolution extract from the pOstmOrtem section of viral symphOny was published in NME (The New Musical Express) magazine.

Awards and acknowledgements

Movements

Performance history

Orlando et la tempête viral symphOny redux suite

In 2020, Joseph Nechvatal and Andrew Deutsch went back to virus-modelled audio material unused in the creation of viral symphOny and reworked it into the Orlando et la tempête viral symphOny redux suite by also integrating an anonymous reading of the novel Orlando, written by Virginia Woolf in 1928. Orlando et la tempête viral symphOny redux suite was created in connection with Joseph Nechvatal's art exhibition Orlando et la tempête, held in the Fall of 2020 at Galerie Richard Paris and was broadcast and archived on January 16, 2021, at 4pm on WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears. Orlando et la tempête viral symphOny redux suite is one of the two LP vinyl records that make up Nechvatal's 2022 release The Viral Tempest on Pentiments Records. The other being pour finir avec le jugement de dieu viral symphOny plague. In 2024 an audio art installation was created by Nechvatal mixing the two LPs called Le mariage d’Orlando et Artaud, même at La Générale Nord-Est: Laboratoire artistique politique et social in Paris. Tracklist:

Selected Sound Works (1981-2021)

In 2021, a retrospective of Joseph Nechvatal's sound art, that included multiple aspects of viral symphOny, was produced by Pentiments Records as a 28 track 60minute audio cassette with digital download at Bandcamp with Liner Notes by Laurent Fairon. It was released on October 15, 2021. Tracklist:

Recording reference

Footnotes