Ryoji Ikeda, the sound artist who in the late 20th Century redefined the parameters of what digital composition could be with his "Matrix" series while touring with multimedia theatre group Dumb Type bringing their visceral explorations of perception, time, light, sound and the body to (literally) sense-stunned audiences around the world. This couple year span was a rare stint of international performances from Ikeda and the Kyoto based theatre group exhibiting two major works on the subjects of mortality, "OR" and that of memory, "Momorandum". In the ensuing decade since, Montreal, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have played host to exhibits, installations and performances of his work, but very little in the way of other west coast opportunities. San Francisco's Recombinant Media Labs being one of the only exceptions, and even then, that was some eight years ago.
Since 2011 we've seen a reversal on this dearth of live activity, with New York hosting his awe inspiring "The Transfinite" installation at the Park Avenue Amory inspiring many viewers to "Voyage into the Cosmic Minimalism of Ryoji Ikeda". This fall New York City again finds itself as the focal point for his work in North America, with an exhibition of his visual work at Salon94 a performance at The Met of his current evolving audio-visual representation of research into the subatomic wold, "Superposition" coinciding with Prix Ars Electronica awarding Ikeda a residency at CERN and Ikeda's "Test Pattern" gracing the screens of Times Square every night at the stoke of midnight. New York won't be the only ones witnessing these sublime exercises in what the New York Times called, "Putting Cold Data in the Service of Language and Music" as Minneapolis' always progressive Walker Art Center presents "Data Swarms & Physical Sound: The Cerebral and Bodily Art of Ryoji Ikeda" and UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance hosts their own live representation of his singular lexicon of "Superpositions and Hyphens".
