Immersion Into Noise (second edition)

The noise factor is the ratio of signal to noise of an input signal to that of the output signal. Noise can block or interfere with the meaning of a message in both human and electronic communication. But in Information Theory, noise is still considered to be information.

By refining the definition of noise as that which addresses us outside of our preferred comfort zone, Joseph Nechvatal's Immersion Into Noise investigates multiple aspects of cultural noise by applying the audio understanding of noise to the visual, architectural and cognitive domains. Nechvatal expands and extends our understanding of the function of cultural noise by taking the reader through the immersive and phenomenal aspects of noise into algorithmic and network contexts, beginning with his experience in the Abside of the Grotte de Lascaux.

Immersion Into Noise is intended as a conceptual handbook useful for the development of a personal-political-visionary art of noise. On a planet that is increasingly technologically linked and globally mediated, how might noises break and re-connect in distinctive and productive ways within practices located in the world of art and thought? That is the question Joseph Nechvatal explores in Immersion Into Noise.

Joseph Nechvatal's contemporary art and theory practice engages in the fragile wedding of image production and image resistance. His book of essays Towards an Immersive Intelligence (2009) was published by Edgewise Press. He has also published three books with Punctum Press: Minóy (ed.) (2014), Destroyer of Naivetés (2015) and Styling Sagaciousness (2022). His audio works, Selected Sound Works (2021) and The Viral Tempest (2022), have been published by Pentiments.