Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966, Gifu, Japan; active Paris and Kyoto) is one of the world’s leading composers and media artists. In this exhibition, the High will present the US debut of data-verse, Ikeda’s trilogy of monumental, immersive light and sound installations that represents more than two decades of research by the artist and reflects upon the progressive digitalization of an integrated global society. The exhibition will also premiere new work alongside existing works, including data gram, a series of eighteen monitors that take apart, analyze, and recombine information in data-verse.
Ikeda’s immersive video projections, which will be presented floor-to-ceiling onto the walls of the museum’s largest exhibition space, feature visualizations of data extracted from mathematical theories and the study of quantum physics. His more recent work, including data-verse, incorporates open-source imagery from institutions such as NASA, CERN, and the Human Genome Project.
Ikeda produced data-verse in three “chapters,” transforming the open-sourced datasets through self-written programs to create the works’ visual output, which is then synchronized and composed in arrangement with an electronic score. Together, the music, video projections, and the museum’s architecture become a dynamically balanced, self-contained whole. Ikeda’s work immerses the audience in a seemingly endless flow of data and explores the macroscopic depths of the universe and our relationship to it.
