The Vinyl Factory x Fact in collaboration with Audemars Piguet Contemporary to present RYOJI IKEDA, the largest exhibition of works by the audio-visual artist to date in Europe at 180 Studios, 180 The Strand, London. The solo exhibition, which will be on show within the vast 180 Studios space will feature world premieres of several never-before-seen works and will invite viewers to immerse themselves in Ikeda’s thought-provoking and highly-charged dynamic digital universe.
Ryoji Ikeda’s innovative work explores the essential characteristics of sound and light by means of mathematical precision and aesthetics. The artist engages with frequencies and scales difficult for the human ear and mind to comprehend, visualising sounds, and rendering the imperceptible through numerical systems and computer aesthetics. By orchestrating sounds, visuals, materials, physics and mathematics, Ikeda goes beyond the conceptual to delve into extremes and infinites, testing the limits of human senses and digital technology. His long-term projects have taken a multiplicity of forms, from live performances and immersive audio-visual installations to books and CDs, and have evolved over the years to encompass the latest iterations of his data-driven research.
This exhibition, produced and curated by The Vinyl Factory x Fact, follows five years of collaboration between Ryoji Ikeda and The Vinyl Factory, which includes the UK premieres of Ikeda’s supersymmetry in 2015 and test pattern [N°12] in 2017, as well as several vinyl albums and new commissions. Their latest venture will present twelve large-scale, multi-media works of which six will be premiering on the global stage, and five will be showing for the first time in the UK. The exhibition is also the first show by a solo artist to take over multiple floors at 180 Studios, a space which has been adapted specifically for Ikeda’s work.
Over the last 20 years, Fact magazine has operated at the intersection between electronic music and cutting-edge contemporary art. Now, launching with this Ryoji Ikeda exhibition, Fact will produce its own exhibitions, hosting a dizzying rotation of large-scale art shows open to the public with a focus on the new wave of artists creating immersive experiences, with the Fact Space opening in the basement of 180 The Strand in 2021. Imagined by Ikeda as a subterranean exploration of sound and light, the exhibition will take viewers on a sensory journey of 180 Studios’ labyrinth-like spaces which seem to defy the building’s scale. The exhibition will show how Ikeda has transformed the way we experience art and pioneered a global movement with immersive works that push our senses to new sonic and visual extremes, challenging our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
“The entire exhibition is based very much on physical experience, not only intellectual content. It begins with works that give intense, very simple experiences, and then the works get more complicated, like the data-oriented digital projections such as data-verse.”
Ryoji Ikeda
Among those artworks premiering is the data-verse trilogy, a large-scale immersive project commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary in 2015. The installation will feature all three variations, shown for the first time together at 180 Studios, creating a rare opportunity for audiences to see the works in harmony in a new environment which is uniquely able to take on and maximise the trilogy’s’ scale, where most spaces can’t. Since 2012, Audemars Piguet Contemporary has commissioned contemporary artists to create new artworks that reflect the world we cohabit today. data-verse marks the conclusive chapter in Ikeda’s data-driven audio-visual research and aesthetics that first began in the early 2000s.
It visualises and sonifies the different dimensions co-existing in our world, from the microscopic to the human, to the macroscopic. data-verse 1 premiered at the 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale de Venezia, in 2019. data-verse 2 was unveiled in Tokyo Midtown in October 2019. data-verse 3 will be premiered in London in a mesmerised showing of the three chapters. The trilogy’s sublime medley of bright lights, visceral patterns charging at high frequencies, and constant yet calming acoustic will be positioned at the centre of the exhibition and will allow viewers an impactful moment of reflection on the vast data universe in which we live.
A new, site-specific version of test pattern will also be making its global debut. test pattern is a system hat converts any type of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. Through its application, the project aims to examine the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception. The exhibition will also include UK premieres of other hypnotic Ikeda artworks including point of no return, an intense audio-visualisation that creates a virtual experience akin to entering a black hole, spectra III, a tunnel of strobe lighting that made its premiere at the 2019 Venice Biennale which has been readapted to reflect the scale of the 180 Studios show, and A (continuum), a sound installation comprising six colossal Meyer SB-1 speakers that will act as minimalist sculptures.
RYOJI IKEDA will be on view from 12th November 2020 until 28th February 2021, at 180 Studios, 180 The Strand, London. The exhibition will be presented by The Vinyl Factory x Fact in collaboration with Audemars Piguet Contemporary. 180 Studios, 180 Strand, London WC2R 3DA It is a ticketed event
About the Artist
Ryoji Ikeda (b. 1966 in Gifu, Japan) Leading electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda explores the essential characteristics of sound and light by means of mathematical precision and aesthetics. By orchestrating sounds, visuals, materials, physics and mathematics, Ikeda goes beyond the conceptual to delve into extremes and infinites, testing the limits of human senses and digital technology. Ikeda’s experimental work engages with frequencies and scales difficult for the human ear and mind to comprehend, visualising sounds and rendering the imperceptible through numerical systems and computer aesthetics. His long-term projects have taken a multiplicity of forms, from immersive live performances and audio-visual installations to books and CDs. They have evolved over the years to encompass the latest iterations of his data-driven research. Ryoji Ikeda’s work has been performed and exhibited in numerous venues worldwide, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Elektra Festival, DHC Art Foundation and Musée d’Art Contemporain (MAC) in Montreal, the Festival Grec and the Sonár in Barcelona, the Barbican Centre and The Vinyl Factory in London, the Carriageworks in Sydney, the MONA in Hobart, the Ruhrtriennale in Germany, the Kyoto Experiment, the ACT Centre in Gwangju, the Singapore Art Science Museum, the Kunstverein in Hannover, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Metz, the ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Eye Film Museum Amsterdam and Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, among others. Ikeda is the recipient of the 2001 Ars Electronica’s Golden Nica Prize for the Digital Music Category, the 2012 Giga-Hertz- Award in the category of Sound Art at ZKM in Germany and the 2014 Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN. He is represented by Galerie Almine Rech (Bruxelles, Paris, London, New York and Shanghai) and Taro Nasu Gallery (Toyko).
www.ryojiikeda.com www.codexedition.com
