Artchipel

Ryoji Ikeda (b.1966, Japan/France) - The Transfinite (2011)

Ryoji Ikeda’s background is in music, which he attributes to his time spent DJing in Tokyo while in his twenties, before further utilizing sound in artistic context. Having developed an extensive discography since the early nineties, Ikeda’s compositions are concerned with the absolute ends of sound spectra. Syncopating pulses of sound in unstructured phrases, modulating and distorting tones to both ends of the capacity of human hearing.

Ikeda’s increasingly complex installations follow similar criteria to which his compositions adhere. Construing data from im/possibly large computer-generated numbers, his quandaries of mathematical absolution and astronomical measures translate to high-contrast light-based works of art projected on constructed surfaces. Numbers in volume become forms of their own, blocks of white and black fracture and pulsate synchronously to Ikeda’s thoroughly processed musical compositions. Ikeda often pairs live performances with his installations.

What is revealed through the all-or-none aesthetic approach used in Ikeda’s multi-faceted retrospective is similar to a half-tone print. Being subjugated to such visual and musical extremity, the mind starts filling in gaps, creating the illusion of tonality and structure as the point of observation is shifted.

A sincere thanks to Jacob Van Loon for this Tumblr Monday. Ikeda’s new performance Superposition will premiere at the Centre Pompidou in Paris this week as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris.

[more Ryoji Ikeda | Tumblr Monday with jacobvanloon]