Early in January this year I made my way along The Strand in central London to 180 Studios, very much within my old stomping ground as a mid-80s student. Entering the basement down the black-walled staircase, I was led to a darkened space where bean bags were laid out on the ground in a circle, each visitor invited to recline and turn their attention to the ceiling above, which was in fact taken up by a huge LED screen.
What followed was what its creator describes as ‘a total sensory experience.’ This was Ryoji Ikeda’s installation, data-cosm [N˚1]. It’s difficult to convey the sensations evoked when overwhelmed by the images on the screen above you. Digital patterns passing quickly overhead, so disorienting that you start to wonder whether it is in fact you who is moving at pace. Data panels, apparently relating to weather conditions in locations across the world, but presented so quickly it’s impossible to be sure. Some passages are dominated by black and bright white, as if you have been plunged at microscopic scale into the inner workings of a computer chip, experiencing the lightning-quick processing of bits and bytes. Then an assault of colour with predominant red, perhaps climate maps of an overheating world, offset by the blue of the oceans. The next moment there are two white lines of horizon and we seem to be hurtling towards them at a speed that only the imagined spaceships of sci-fi can travel.
Continue reading “World Citizen – The Only Daughter (remixed by Ryoji Ikeda)”
