Interview: Joseph Nechvatal on biota.org

Joseph Nechvatal

Biota.org
Joseph Nechvatal Interview

Many thanks for the opportunity to interview you for Biota.org. For those not familiar with your background, can you please introduce your academic background?

Sure. I took a BFA at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale first, taking design classes with Buckminster Fuller and making art in a permissive post-minimalist environment. I then went to Cornell University with the idea of getting an MFA, but found the art department there years behind Southern Illinois University, so I left and went to New York and Columbia University where I worked towards an MPhil, studying with Arthur Danto most notably.

In the late 90s I earned a Ph.D. in the philosophy of art and new technology at Roy Ascott's Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA) at The University of Wales College. That was a fantastic intellectual experience. My research was focused on the immersive ideals behind virtual reality. Your readers can examine the introduction and download the full thesis as a pdf file if they wish.