data.anatomy [civic] audiovisual installation by Ryoji Ikeda

MUMA is an extraordinary location for exhibitons, performances, concerts and other events. Its purpose is to unify Best Practice and Utopia by providing space for all kinds of art, advancing the collaboration between various disciplines and linking creative people virtually as well as physically across the globe.

In this context we present the cold, massive, impressive and wonderful work by Ryoji Ikeda, Japanese, living in Paris. The articulation and presentation of these data, crossing big screens, with the addition of a clever choice of music, it is a spectacle, in a context as incredible as that of MUMA, which as other times with the work of this Japanese, you feel the need to go immediately to Berlin. Hat tip!

txt by José Juan Barba

Finding beauty in complex mathematical data is essentially at the heart of one of the latest art/car collaborations. Japanese digital composer and artist Ryoji Ikeda has translated the entire data of the new Honda Civic into an audiovisual installation with intriguing results.

Exhibited at MUMA (Kraftwerk) on a bespoke 20-meter by 4-meter wall – the giant robust concrete warehouse in East Berlin admittedly adding to the theatrical drama – is a twelve-minute video art with sensual fast-moving imagery and hypnotic music. It is a visual and sensory treat.

The project started in early 2011 with the development leader of the new Civic Mitsuru Kariya allowing Ikeda complete access to the CAD data of the car. ‘This information is confidential and top secret like a CIA file,’ muses the artist following the screening, ‘and we felt huge responsibility.’

Then came the difficult task of translating it all into visual and audio form. ‘When I saw the data I felt like a microcosm – it is so detailed,’ he says. It took around 3000 engineers over four years to create this. ‘And I had to respect what they do.’

Working with his team at the studios in Paris and Tokyo, Ikeda analyzed the data and began to compose his work. ‘A Civic consists of thousands and thousands of tiny parts,’ he says. ‘It is like a human – there are so many organs in it – and that inspired me.’

Asked if the sound triggered the music or the music the sound, Ikeda notes that the process was essentially democratic. ‘The colors, frequencies, music – all come together. It is mostly a mathematical operation.’ Honda’s Kariya later remarked that he could almost see the engineers and designers involved in the project in Ikeda’s installation.

txt by Nargess Shahmanesh Banks in design talks.

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Ryoji Ikeda

Ryoji Ikeda. Born in 1966 in Gifu, Japan. Live and work in Paris, France. Japan’s leading electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the essential characteristics of sound itself and that of visuals as light by means of both mathematical precision and mathematical aesthetics. Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. He elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, materials, physical phenomena and mathematical notions into immersive live performances and installations.

Alongside of pure musical activity, Ikeda has been working on long-term projects: 'datamatics' (2006-) consists of various forms such as moving image, sculptural, sound and new media works that explore one's potentials to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world. The project 'test pattern' (2008-) has developed a system that converts any type of data - text, sounds, photos and movies into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s, which examines the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception. The series 'spectra' (2001-) is large-scale installations employing intense white light as a sculptural material and so transforming public locations in Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and Nagoya where versions have been installed. With Carsten Nicolai, Ikeda works a collaborative project 'cyclo.' (2000- ), which examines error structures and repetitive loops in software and computer programmed music, with audiovisual modules for real-time sound visualization, through live performance, CDs and books (Raster-noton, 2001, 2011).

He performed and exhibited worldwide including Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne; MIT, Boston; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sónar Festival Barcelona; Tate Modern, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Auditorium Parco della Musica, Roma; lCC, Tokyo; Art Beijing; Göteborg Biennale; Mutek Festival, Mexico; Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing; Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media; Le Laboratoire, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Singapore art Museum; Crossing the Line Festival, New York; Ars Electronica Center, Linz; Grec Festival, Barcelona; Aichi Triennale, Nagoya; Palazzo Grassi, Venezia; Armory Park Avenue, New York; Barbican Center, London; Museo de Arte, Bogota; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Laboral, Gijon; Festival d’Automne,Paris, as well as electronic music festivals and small DJ clubs.

His albums +/- (1996), 0°C (1998), matrix (2000), dataplex (2005) and test pattern (2008) - pioneered a new minimal world of electronic music through his razor-sharp technique and aesthetics. His work matrix won the Golden Nica Award at Ars Electronica in 2001.

Published on: April 20, 2012

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