Mathematic(k)s & Blips

Ikeda bends math to astounding audiovisual conclusions. Via.

Imagine being immersed in a black and white (and very occasionally red) world of nearly imperceptible electronic whines, trippy digital beats, lulling clicks and jarring ticks, swirling computer-generated geometric dust devils and slippery, speeding, jarring, eye shattering mathematics. Senses have been loaded, perhaps about to spill over, and  perceptions of the world and sound itself have come into question by hyper, hypnotic and profoundly confounding live audiovisual experience created by one of Japan's leading new music pioneers, Ryoji Ikeda.

The Contemporary called Ikeda "a man for whom sound and vision comprise not two separate senses but a single stimulus to the senses," and described the awesome opening of one of his shows as such:

Nothing: a blank black screen and a wall of silence. Slowly, imperceptibly, a distant high-pitched hum emerges from the sonic void, like the sound of a moist finger running around a half-filled wine glass. Simultaneously, slowly, the screen flickers into life: white lines bisecting the black background. The hum disintegrates into blips and bleeps. Flashes of beauty flicker on the screen... then fragment into a never-ending series of numbers. The visual aesthetic vanishes, to be replaced by pure data, yet at the same time the very essence of the image transformed into an abstract but utterly precise mathematical code.

This weekend Ikeda performs the New York premiere of his 2006 masterpiece datamatics [ver. 2.0]. Co-presented by Japan Society and FIAF as part FIAF's Crossing the Line Festival, datamatics takes place at Florence Guild Hall September 10 and 11.

The festival includes a solo site-specific installation up through October 16 designed for the FIAF Gallery, consisting of Ikeda's hyper-real manifestations of complex mathematics, combining discussions with Harvard number theorist Benedict Gross and meditations on transcendental numbers. 

S.J.