Japan’s leading electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the minutiae of ultrasonics, frequencies and the essential characteristics of sound itself. Born in Gifu, Ikeda lives and works in Paris. He has exhibited and performed internationally, collaborated with Carsten Nicolai, William Forsythe and Hiroshi Sugimoto amongst others and his work matrix — hailed by critics as one of the most radical and innovative examples of contemporary electronic music — won the Golden Nica Award in 2001.
Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. He integrates sound, acoustics and sublime imagery to create live performances and installations presented at wide-ranging venues from Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and Centre Pompidou to electronic music festival Sonar in Barcelona. His albums +/- (1996), 0°C (1998) and matrix (2000) — all released on Touch — pioneered a new minimal world of electronic music
Other selected works include datamatics a long-term programme of moving image, sculptural, sound and new media works that explores the ways in which abstracted views of reality are used to encode, understand and control the world. The series spectra is large scale installations employing intense white light as a sculptural material and so transforming locations in Amsterdam and Paris where versions have been installed.
"Through crafty, thoughtful manipulation of the raw binary data and noise that course unnoticed through modern life, Mr. Ikeda and his collaborators evoke a world profoundly moving in its intricacy and elegance"
Steve Smith, The New York Times (read full article)
Residencies and awards
2003
Nominated for Arts category, World Technology Awards, New York
2001
Golden Nica prize for Digital Music category, Ars Electronica, Austria
Selected exhibitions and performances
2010
Transmediale festival, Berlin
Bangkok Culture and Art Centre
V&A Museum, London
transcendental [nº3] and test pattern [n˚2] at ARTe SONoro
datamatics [ver.2.0] tours to venues including FIAF, New York and Teatro Della Pergola, Florence
test pattern [live set] tours Europe
Brussels Electronic Music Festival and Festival Zemos98, Seville
2009
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (first major retrospective)
Le Laboratoire, Paris
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver
Mutek 10: A/Visions 4, Montreal
Nam June Paik Art Centre, Seoul
datamatics [ver.2.0] tours to venues including Ars Electronica and Pompidou Metz
test pattern [live set] at Itaú Cultural, Sao Paolo and Elektra 10, Montreal
2008
Dream Amsterdam
Notte Digitale, Rome
Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (first solo exhibition in Japan)
datamatics [ver.2.0] tours to venues including International Symposium: Architectures for Musi, Barcelona, Théâtre Nono, Marseille, Centre Pompidou, Paris
data.tron tours to venues including Guangdong Museum of Art and Grand Palais, Paris
2007
Abracadabra Festival, Moscow
Centre Pompidou, Paris
datamatics [ver.1.0] and C⁴I tour to locations including Elektra Festival, Montreal, Art Beijing and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
2006
Barbican, London
C⁴I tours to venues including Barbican, London, Maerz Musik, Berlin and Tokyo International Forum
datamatics [prototype and ver.1.0] tour to venues including Tate Modern, London, Sonar festival, Barcelona and Recombinant Media Labs, San Francisco
spectra II tours to Arnolfini, Bristol and Sensorium, Massachusetts
2005
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Melbourne International Arts Festival
2004
Terminal 5, JFK Airport, New York
2003
formula [ver 2.0] at Le Ferme du Buisson, Paris
2002
formula [ver 1.0] at the Arches Glasgow
With Carsten Nicolai and Mika Vainio touring to the The Tyne and Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, ICA, London and La Grande Halle, Paris
Selected works
2010
data.matrix [n˚1-10]
spectra [barcelona]
2008
spectra [paris]
test pattern installation and live set
2007
dataphonics [radio program series]
dataphonics [concert version]
data.film
data.tron [prototype]
2006
cyclo. with Carsten Nicolai
dataphonics
2005
data.spectra
db
C⁴I
2004
spectra II
spectra [for Terminal 5, JFK]
formula [ver 2.2 & ver 2.3]
Ryoji Ikeda’s work is produced internationally by Forma.
