At VernissageTV

Ryoji Ikeda's ‘data.tecture [nº1]’

John Hill
10. April 2024
Photo: Screenshot from “Ryoji Ikeda: data.tecture [nº1] (2018) / Blum Gallery Los Angeles” at YouTube

Over the last twenty years, Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda has been producing numerous “data” artworks comprised of visual and sonic media: data.trons, data.scans, data.matrices, data.fluxes, data.grams, and, more recently, data.tectures. What exactly is a data.tecture? “In Ikeda’s installation,” according to Blum Gallery, “data is transcribed into abstract algorithms that result in computer-generated imagery that is compressed, flattened, rasterized, and streamed at breakneck speed.” The “breakneck” frame rate exceeds the human brain's processing capacity, so ironically the faster speed appears slower. Although the short film is free of people, visitors to the installation would have been part of the artwork, with the patterns of light projected onto their bodies as they walked across the floor. 

Also watch a couple earlier videos of Ryoji Ikeda's “Test Pattern” installations at VernissageTV:

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