Ryoji Ikeda seen by…
You might know the Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda for his amazing installations, all monumental, which feed on computer data transformed into clever sound and visual signals. Exhibited at La Villette, the Almine Rech Gallery, or the Center Pompidou, they all reveal the artist’s penchant for mathematics, the cosmos and the infinite. At the 58th Venice Biennale, we discovered his Data-Verse, an immersive installation put together with the support of the Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet, using data from NASA and the European Organization for Nuclear Research. During an “Beyond Watchmaking” exhibition the Swiss company revealed a new release. These specialists present Ryoji Ikeda, his journey and his unique work.
Chus Martinez, Spanish art critic, director of the Art Institute of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design, in Basel
What are Ryoji Ikeda’s particularities?
The uniqueness of his work is based on the way he mixes a reflection on both mathematics and the cosmos. He creates true technological symphonies in which numbers are converted into musical notes and lights in a philosophical way. The ultimate idea in his work is to establish a link between the different scales of what coexists in the universe, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. His works are, so to speak, collections or treatises on how humans try to understand and dominate the world around them, on how we must learn to reconsider ourselves in front of many other forms of life and intelligence. You could say that each of his works invites us to rethink our domination over the world, the fact that we are present in this system, that we are only a small piece among so many others, and to question the generosity of the universe.
What makes his creative process so special?
His way of working is unique, not so much for the musical result but also for the role that music and sound play in this complex tangle of research. It is both technological and mystical; sound gives the experience of light and image an internal dimension that reaches deep inside us. With his work, sound has a physical dimension and our bodies fully react to it. Composing is for Ikeda, to study the body and life from other dimensions. And sound is a means of connecting our body to this invisible substance, giving us the almost magical possibility of feeling the universe. It is fascinating to see how the artist manages with technological tools to go beyond technology and to create another more spiritual dimension. In this sense, we can say that Ikeda is a precursor: he has created not only his own language but also his own thought; one might even say he has created a philosophy.