Music

“An astonishing work” ── ArtAsiaPacific

“Strict, beautiful” ── The New York Times

Ryoji Ikeda, lauded as “the master of minimalist electronica”, is renowned for utilising the beauty of mathematical precision to draw out the essence of sound and image, igniting a completely new visceral and aesthetic experience. Over the past two decades, the celebrated Japanese composer and digital artist has been actively exploring a wide range of creative formats, including live performance, installation and audio recording. Ikeda has collaborated with prominent artists and groups, such as Japan’s avant-garde multimedia collective Dumb Type, choreographer William Forsythe and architect Toyo Ito, and received numerous international awards, including the Golden Nica Award, Giga-Hertz Award and Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN 2014.

superposition was commissioned by Festival d’Automne à Paris and held its world première at the Centre Pompidou. Inspired by the world of quantum mechanics, Ikeda observes nature from an infinitesimal perspective in this work. To Ikeda, nature is everywhere, from the microscopic to the mighty, and try as we might to understand it, the unimaginable vastness will always keep secrets beyond the grasp of the human mind. Unusually for Ikeda, this astonishing theatrical concert features two performers who play various non-musical instruments and interact with 21 video screens of different sizes. Orchestrating sonic and visual media into a mind-tingling piece, the pair integrates physical phenomena, mathematical concepts, human control and randomness into an awe-inspiring symphony of the universe.