Technology by the numbers in cutting edge digital project
For anyone who doesn’t feel they normally spend enough time staring at a computer screen, the latest exhibition at Ikon Eastside should be a must.
It’s the first one-man show in the UK for New York-based Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda.
Born in 1966, he is best known as a sound artist and composer of electronic scores.
At Ikon he is showing data.tron (2007) a digital projection on a vast screen which, according to the notes “explores the vast universe of data in the infinity between 0 and 1”.
What you actually see is a vast black and white grid of rapidly tumbling numbers. The projection, on a six-minute cycle, occasionally freezes and divides into various columns.
Projected at four times conventional film speed, it has a powerful graphic quality, apparently at the leading edge of projection technology.
The installation has previously been exhibited in China, Taiwan, The Netherlands and New Zealand.
On November 24 Birmingham Contemporary Music Group will host an audio-visual concert of Ikeda’s music at the CBSO Centre, the first concert devoted to him in the UK since 2006.
Apparently some of Ikeda’s music is extremely quiet and ambient, but not all of it.
Ear plugs will be provided.
* data.tron is at Ikon Eastside, 183 Fazeley Street, Digbeth, until November 8 (Thur-Sun 1pm-5pm; admission free), damatics [ver.2.0] is at the CBSO Centre on November 24 at 8.45pm.
