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, uses the language and aesthetic of mathematics to compose countless sequential frames and pose experiential questions to the public about existence and transcendent identity.

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".

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.
"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 Centre (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.