As threatened previously, I did pop over to Ikon Eastside on Friday lunchtime. The current installation is by Ryoji Ikeda and is called data.tron, part of:
his exploration of the infinity of data between 0 and 1, an abstraction of reality that challenges our perception of the codes present in everyday life
It was quite nice and sunny on Friday afternoon, so stepping off Fazeley Street and walking straight into a pitch black space was a little disconcerting. Especially with no-one else around, the air filled with a high-pitched whine and clicking with the large wall at the far end taken up by a projection of streaming data.
For a second it all felt a little too Poltergeist/Ring-esque – I half expected Sadako to start crawling towards me. That didn’t happen.
What looked like white noise from a distance turned out to be precisely determined; calculated data with it’s own, very particular, order (albeit one I couldn’t make out – but I’m happy to accept it’s there). Interesting, then.
data.tron will be at Ikon Eastside until 8 November, while on 24 November there’ll be an audio-visual concert – datamatics [ver 2.0] – by Ryoji Ikeda at the CBSO Centre, hosted by BCMG.
The work will also form the backdrop of Ikon Eastside’s closing party on 12 November:
Dress code is black and white, lights and atmosphere will be suitably monochrome, music and bands organised in collaboration with Colour