They may invisible, but they are highly valuable; they belong to private individuals, but, when harvested, they can cause a lot of trouble, especially if they are shared with the wrong entities. You may think they are something strictly technological, but they can actually be applied to different fields, from the communication industry to politics and fashion as well. Ah yes, and they could be considered as art. What are we talking about? Data, obviously.
The 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice features quite a few installations inspired by technology, including Ryoji Ikeda's "data-verse 1" (2019), a large-scale high-definition screen on which scientific data from CERN, NASA and The Human Genome Project are projected.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) has just joined in the celebration of data by launching an exhibition entirely dedicated to the works of the Japanese artist and composer.
Organised by TFAM curator Jo Hsiao and guest curator Eva Lin, the event (on display in the Galleries 1A & 1B until 17th November 2019) covers Ikeda's career in Asia since 2009 through large-scale sound sculptures, audiovisual installations, light boxes and two-dimensional works.
While he is better known for his works about data, Ikeda has actually focused in his career on both visual and sound art inspired by math, quantum mechanics, physics, philosophy and synthesized audio tones, music and video.
The artist doesn't actually have any formal training in art or music: Ikeda started indeed experimenting with music by editing it, manipulating magnetic tapes and toying with sound frequencies.
While collaborating with multimedia art collective Dumb Type in the '90s, Ikeda moved onto investigating the possibilities offered by cross-disciplinary collaborations, and began to do sound art performances and sound installations and releasing albums.
By the mid-'90s Ikeda abandoned repetitive sound creations to explore the theme of sound in its physical nature and developed minimal compositions. He therefore proceeded to break sounds into small units and rearrange and reassemble them, via pure sine waves and white noise to create innovative soundscapes that challenged the limits of human aural perception.
From the year 2000, Ikeda began new explorations in the world of visual installations reducing the world to data. Using mathematical calculations, he achieved precise structures that he transforms via rigorous arithmetic logic into artistic forms with a mesmerising data aesthetic.
The curators at Taipei Fine Arts Museum included in the event Ikeda's major works, from his audio compositions and tapestry of sounds and frequencies, to his installatiosn based on data and code language.
Stepping into the TFAM lobby visitors will first discover Ikeda's "A [continuum]" consisting in five speakers in the shape of silos simultaneously emitting sounds in specific sequences and combinations. The standard concert pitch of "A" to which orchestras tune has never been precisely defined from the age of Bach to the present day. In this work, each speaker is assigned a different "standard pitch" used at different times in history. Different frequencies interweave and overlap, forming an intricate topography of resonant sonic forms.
Fans of artworks based on data will be more interested in "data.scan [nº1-9]": Ikeda's datamatics project employs pure mathematical calculation and reduces massive quantities of real-world data - among them human DNA sequences, Morse code and particle structures - into individual pixels of visual imagery. The effect is mesmerising as you can see red, white and black microscopic elements forming visually fluid images synchronized with minimal soundscapes.
In the double-faced installation "Point of no return", Ikeda's most metaphysical work, a single video projector casts a black hole, formed by a vast quantity of information. On the other side there is instead a white light with a colour temperature nearly the same as the sun's.
The work references the scientific concept of a black hole, with a huge gravitational force that distorts time and space, capturing anything that enters it, even light. The edge in between the two faces is where the trajectories of the black hole and white light intersect, serving as a symbol of the critical threshold of space-time.
The large-scale audiovisual installation "the planck universe [macro]" employs the Planck length, an infinitesimal unit of measurement in physics, to explore humankind's potential capacity to perceive the natural world at scales both infinitely small and infinitely vast.
Depicting the boundlessness of the cosmos, from the human scale up to dimensions beyond the observable universe, it attempts to extend the limits of our understanding of the world to reach the edge of the universe. Ikeda conceived this work during his residency at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN; Ikeda was the recipient of the 3rd Prix Ars Electronica Collide at CERN).
While the exhibition comprises also experimental drawings, manuscripts and concert footage, so that visitors can get a better perspective on Ikeda's creative ideas, the main aim of this event is not focusing just on Ikeda's works, but looking at science and technology and realising that they do have a place in the world of art.
Ikeda's immersive installations are metaphors of cosmological immensity that explore unanswerable questions. Quite often these investigations are based on mathematical structures and challenge visitors to consider themes such as perception, scale, space and time. They are data or sound poems that provide us with a glimpse of what we may see in a museum in a few decades' time – certainly not conventional portraits made with traditional materials such as brushes and oil colours, but high-tech screens visualising through data the history of humanity.
Image credits for this post
All images in this post courtesy and copyright Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan
1 -3. Ryoji Ikeda Solo Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Installation Views
4.
A [ continuum], 2018
sound installation
concept and composition: Ryoji Ikeda
programming: Tomonaga Tokuyama
5 super directional speakers (Meyer SB 1),
computer
Dimensions variable
© Ryoji Ikeda Taipei Fine Arts Museum
5.
point of no return 2018
DLP projector, computer, speaker, HMI lamp
Dimensions variable
© Ryoji Ikeda Taipei Fine Arts Museum
6, 7 and 8.
code-verse, 2018
audiovisual installation
concept and composition: Ryoji Ikeda
computer graphics and programming: Tomonaga
Tokuyama
3 DLP video projectors, computers, speakers
Dimensions variable
© Ryoji Ikeda & Taipei Fine Arts Museum
9, 10 and 11.
the planck universe [macro], 2015
audiovisual installation
3 DLP video projectors, computers, speakers
Dimensions variable
© Ryoji Ikeda & Taipei Fine Arts Museum
12 and 13.
Ryoji Ikeda Solo Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Installation Views
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