Ryoji Ikeda

15 September — 2 December 2018

Ikeda’s work often depicts the invisible structures and data that shape our lives. In his mind-expanding art, Ikeda features images of pixels as well as the universe: the very smallest and the very biggest come together.

From September through December 2018, Ryoji Ikeda, visual artist and a key figure in the world of electronic music, created a spectacular presentation specially for Eye. He filled the exhibition gallery with his overwhelmingly immersive audiovisual artworks, which are based on elementary phenomena such as silence, space, time and infinity.

In creating his minimalist and breathtaking art, Ikeda (born in Japan in 1966) draws on mathematical concepts, quantum mechanics, data, sound and light, transforming them into works of intangible power and beauty, often capturing the invisible structures and data that shape our lives.With mathematical precision, he reduces sound and images to their essence in stunning installations that bombard viewers with visual data. From pixels to the universe, he brings together the very smallest and very biggest in his work.

Solo exhibitions and live performances by Ikeda have recently been held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and at Carriageworks in Sydney. Ikeda won the Prix Ars Electronica Collide @CERN in 2014.

Watch the exhibition trailer:

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About the exhibition

Among the works on show at Eye was the radar [3WUXGA version A] (2012/2018). In this huge projection, sublime abstract compositions alternate with images from a microscope and a telescope, pictures of faraway places, and maps of moons and weather charts.

data.scan (2009) translates data from scientific studies that map both the human body and the astronomic universe.

point of no return (2018) is a new work made by Ikeda for Eye. It shows a black hole containing huge quantities of information, while the wall behind shows a very bright white hole. Ikeda: “Technically simple, but this new piece will be my most metaphysical work.”

For Eye, Ikeda also presented 4’33” (2010), a tribute to the composition 4’33” by John Cage and an elegant depiction of Cage’s philosophical meditation on the impossibility of silence.

data.tron [3 SXGA+ version] (2009-2018) was projected on a giant screen on which you can experience the vastness of the universe in the endless space between 0 and 1. How many dots are there in a line? How many numbers are there?

Take a virtual tour through the exhibition:

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still from Ex Machina (Alex Garland, GB 2014)

Films, talks & events

Every imaginable scenario about the collaboration between human and machine intelligence features in The Man Machine, a four-week film programme that drew on Eye’s rich collection: from Futura de Maschinenmensch in Fritz Lang’s classic Metropolis (1927) to female humanoid robot Ava in Ex Machina (2014).