ART CITIES:Paris-Ryoji Ikeda

Ryoji Ikeda has gained 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. 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.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Almine Rech Gallery Archive

Ryoji Ikeda presents his solo exhibition “π, e, ø”, at Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, Through the use of a mathematical vocabulary he seeks to present infinity in a visual way. The title of the exhibition stands for three important mathematical constants that are infinite:  π (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter), e (the base of the natural logarithm) and ø (φ, golden ratio: a+b/a = a/b). Ikeda endeavours to reconcile the essence and idea of infinity through various practices and medium and to orchestrate these into a single symphonic materiality. The exhibition unfolds in two chapters: one that is more immersive, with primarily large projected images and sound, while the other showcases analog works – prints, and celluloid film “drawings”. The works “data.tron (WUXGA version)”, and “data.matrix (n°1-10)” belong to the “datamatics” series, which Ikeda has been unfolding since 2006. Its sounds and images are derived from the endless fluxes of data we are surrounded by, albeit invisible and silent until they are decoded by any of the devices we use as receivers: mobile telephones, tablets, computers, etc. With his immersive audiovisual environments, Ikeda materializes the data cloud, and thus creates an awareness of how it reshapes our perception of the world in real time.  The work “4’33’”, which consists of the physical equivalent of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of blank 16mm film with time code, clearly references John Cage’s hugely philosophical meditation on the impossibility of silence. Ikeda chooses to materialize silence, another immaterial yet essential element in human life. Film, which was conceived to be moving is now still, is now framed as a relic, as if to materialize infinity. This is precisely the subject matter of another film work, “π, e, ø” which title takes its cue from three irrational numbers that represent different dimensions of the infinite. The 1 x 1 pixel-like prints somehow function in a similar fashion: the sleek surface of the black, white or grey paper holds almost invisible information, which happens to be fragments of those same numbers. The works on paper,  multiple variations of 1×1 surfaces of white and black from series of numbers,  the transcendental and the irrational, are exhaustively visualised in decimal expressions reaching 1.25 million digits a piece. Works from Ryoji Ikeda’s “time and space” series (2010),  which convert the notion of Time onto 2-dimensional surfaces  are presented together with works from the “test pattern” series (2008)  that refers to the mathematical constants π, e, ø  and uses colors which are developed during the colour separation process of 16mm film.

Info: Almine Rech Gallery, 64 Rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration: 29/11-21/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00,  www.alminerech.com