This latest audiovisual work from Ryoji Ikeda, presents intense flickering black and white imagery, which floats and convulses in darkness to a stark and powerful, highly synchronised soundtrack.
Through a real–time computer programme, test pattern converts Ikeda's audio signal patterns into tightly synchronised barcode patterns on screen. The velocity of the moving images is ultra–fast, some hundreds of frames per second, so that the work provides a performance test for the audio and visual devices, as well as a response test for the audience's perceptions.
test pattern is the third audiovisual concert in Ikeda's datamatics series, an art project that explores the potential to perceive the invisible multi–substance of data that permeates our world.
Taking various forms – installations, live performance and recordings – test pattern acts as a system that converts any type of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. The project aims to examine the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception, pushing both to their absolute limits.

developing and researching alongside the radio program series, this [multi-channel concert] demonstrates the results of the investigation about the fundamental concept of digital, the data of sound, the sound of data. it is performed in a pitch-dark space as a multi-channel concert with a matrixed setup of specific loudspeakers, which forms a unique spatiotemporal sound field to listeners. the experience is straight-ahead physical, and is a series of experiments to test one's potential how (much) he/she can perceive and decipher the infinite numbers of data-codes in the blind state.

Using pure data as a source for sound and visuals, datamatics combines abstract and mimetic presentations of matter, time and space in a powerful and breathtakingly accomplished work. datamatics is the second audiovisual concert in Ryoji Ikeda's datamatics series, an art project that explores the potential to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world. Projecting dynamic, computer-generated imagery - in pared down black and white with striking colour accents, Ikeda's intense yet minimal graphic renderings of data progress through multiple dimensions. From 2D sequences of patterns derived from hard drive errors and studies of software code, the imagery transforms into dramatic, rotating views of the universe in 3D, whilst the final scenes add a further dimension as four-dimensional mathematical processing opens up spectacular and seemingly infinite vistas. A powerful and hypnotic soundtrack reflects the imagery through a meticulous layering of sonic components to produce immense and apparently boundless acoustic spaces. datamatics, alongside the recently released and critically acclaimed dataplex album, marks a significant and exciting progression in Ikeda's work.

datamatics [ver 2.0] is the new, full–length version of Ryoji Ikeda's acclaimed audiovisual concert. For datamatics [ver.2.0], Ikeda has significantly developed the earlier version of this piece (premiered in March 2006), adding a newly commissioned second part. Driven by the primary principles of datamatics, but objectively deconstructing its original elements – sound, visuals and even source codes – this new work creates a kind of meta–datamatics. Ikeda employs real–time programme computations and data scanning to create an extended new sequence that is a further abstraction of the original work. The technical dynamics of the piece, such as its extremely fast frame rates and variable bit depths, continue to challenge and explore the thresholds of our perceptions.

dataphonics [radio program series] consists of 10 six-minutes segments, each one is narrow-focused into a single parameter that is one of the significant elements what music/sound is. the approach is in-between conventional composition and scientific research - with a microscopic engineering method and a certain aesthetic point of view by the artist. the series is also an homage to Pierre Scheaffer's "Solfege de l'objet sonore", however, which never merely retraces his work, its concept deeply lies today's 0s and 1s situation and seek a possibility to materialize the invisible domain of "totally-pure-digital-data". at the end of the 10 compositions, a long composition will be broadcasted as the final result of this project, an artistic demonstration of the investigation about the fundamental concept of digital, data of sound, sound of data.

This new piece is both a concert and a film that uses data as its material and theme, highlighting the ways in which data shapes our understanding of the world. Video images of landscapes are progressively abstracted into a language of data. Facts, figures and diagrams are used in a montage with dazzling graphic impact. The text excerpts elegantly punctuate the on-screen projections. Blurring the lines between nature, science and philosophy, the work subtly and hypnotically suggests the convergence of the real and the virtual. The soundtrack synchronises perfectly with the graphical and video images to create a piece of undeniable power and beauty. In this highly atmospheric work, Ikeda strives for an aesthetic of pure data. Derived from the natural world, from global systems such as economics and from research mathematics, data forms a new material for the artist's explorations. CI, in its meticulous composition and technical sophistication, reveals sublime views of reality.

formula, a constantly evolving work updated with each presentation, is a perfect synchronization between Ikeda's sound frequencies and the movements on the screen. It places the viewer in a binary geometry of space, and exploits the darkness to amplify the perceptions, with outstanding success. Ikeda aims for the complete integration of the various elements, composing music, images, lighting and orchestrating the relationships between them through a highly precise score.

cyclo. is a collaborative research project by Ikeda and Nicolai, which focuses on the visualisation of sound. The artists are developing a database of sounds that they are composing for the visual responses these produce when analysed in real time using equipment developed originally for phase correlation in mastering vinyl records. With the help and development of such stereo image monitoring equipment, metering has become a visual process. The phase and amplitude of stereo signals can now be illustrated graphically. The audio elements have been constructed and chosen through agendas concerned with the minute editing of frequencies (often beyond the physical range of human hearing) and the perceptual amassing of audio elements to an undefined point. For Nicolai and Ikeda an 'infinity index' of sound fragments is a conscious motivation forming the basis of their research and feeding cyclo. with the audio material required for visuality. In amassing this archive, Nicolai and Ikeda transcend the usual dynamic whereby image acts merely as a functional accompaniment to sound. They arrive at a standpoint from which the audio element in the process is subservient to the desire and appetite of the image. Although this imaging is purely 2-D in display, the process proposes 3-D possibilities. Their proposition is that the structural complexities of these visual metered shapes, born and examined from the perspective of audio metering, may have in them a rich potential for architects, designers and engineers to find starting points for structural readings.