data.flux [12 XGA version]

Internationally acclaimed for his digital art audio-visual installations, Ryoji Ikeda knows how to "electrify" the human senses. In a dark and silent environment, pulses of light and sound set the body vibrating with new data every second: the geographical coordinates of our solar system, space-time sequences, genetic codes, molecular information, numbers, lines, letters. With the precision of a metronome, twelve parallel video projectors synchronize with a minimalist electronic composition, turning numbers and data into the ultimate sensory experience for the visitor.

From the micro-patterns that exist around us to the codified knowledge of the whole world, data.flux [12 XGA version], the recent multimedia addition to Ryoji Ikeda's “datamatics” project-in-progress, presented at the Onassis Stegi exhibition hall, from 28th January to 17th February, uses the language and aesthetic of mathematics to compose countless sequential frames and pose experiential questions to the public about existence and transcendent identity.

Having presented its latest multimedia installation in Taiwan, "Data Flux" is coming to Greece to captivate Athenian audiences, too. Semitones are transformed into dotted lines, sound waves into pulsating pixels and high frequencies into tables of data, testing the limits of the viewer's conscious and unconscious perception.

Credits

Concept, Composition: Ryoji Ikeda
Computer Graphics, Programming: Norimichi Hirakawa, Tomonaga Tokuyama
Materials: DLP projectors, computers, speakers
Dimensions: variable

Courtesy of: 2017 Parallax

Opening party on Monday 28 January at 20:00.
DJ set: Voltnoi Brege

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Since it began in 2006, the ongoing “datamatics” series has to date presented over twenty different types of installation worldwide, including animation, new media, sound and sculptural representations. Visitors and art critics have described the experience as "hypnotic" and "ritualistic".

"Even when things seem to be in a state of constant flux, forever regrouping into distinct patterns, unbroken continuity is simply an illusion created by the magnitude of the data we receive", the artist stated in an interview at the YCAM art centre in Japan, one of very few he has given – Ryoji Ikeda avoids the limelight, preferring his work to be experienced rather than analyzed.

Though he has collaborated over the years with several scientists in the field and has completed a residency at the CERN Research Center (after receiving the Prix Ars Electronica Collide in 2014), the Japanese artist does not aim his work at a specialized audience. He keeps it deliberately simple, straightforward, addressed to everyone.

Ryoji Ikeda

Born in 1966 in the contemporary home of technological innovation, Japan, Ryoji Ikeda started out in sound art in the mid-90s and quickly earned a global reputation as a pioneer of minimal electro composition. Based in Paris, in recent years he works primarily with long-term productions and multimedia tools in which sounds, visual material, mathematical concepts and natural phenomena are embodied as animations, immersive installations and concerts.

He has exhibited his work in the world's most important contemporary art venues, including the Tate Modern in London and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. He has also taken part in key digital art festivals such as the Sónar Festival Barcelona and the Elektra Festival Montreal, as well as playing DJ sets in small clubs in France. In addition, he creates artistic interventions with public works in major Western metropolises, like Amsterdam, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles