Media release: Ryoji Ikeda – spectra [amsterdam].Click For Infos.
MEDIA RELEASE | APRIL 2008
Ryoji Ikeda – spectra [amsterdam]
A project for DREAM AMSTERDAM 2008
6 – 21 June 2008
Various locations in Amsterdam
Co–produced by DREAM AMSTERDAM Foundation and Forma
spectra [amsterdam] is artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda’s commission for DREAM AMSTERDAM 2008; his first project for a public space and his first large–scale work pushing the creative possibilities of light to its utmost extremes. Selected architectural features in industrial, civic and open public spaces emanate blinding white light for several hours every evening, in an unearthly, unforgettable experience. Visitors navigate between the sites following a map that connects the distant points of a visceral urban constellation.
Ikeda is an internationally acclaimed composer and sound artist who creates highly technologised installations that play with human perception, in concerts, installations and recordings integrating sound, acoustics and sublime imagery derived from pure mathematics and the endless sea of data in the world. He is the second artist chosen by DREAM AMSTERDAM to realise a vision for the city using its streets and buildings as a source of inspiration, as a medium, as studio and as exhibition space. Spencer Tunick was the first artist commissioned by DREAM AMSTERDAM and in 2007 worked with two thousand naked people across the city in a car park, a petrol station, a canal, on bicycles and in a tulip field.
Ikeda’s work is becoming increasing well known internationally. At the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media in Japan his first major solo exhibition datamatics features the works data.film [nº1-a] and data.tron and a new commission for the Center, test pattern [nº1]. datamatics is an ongoing project exploring the invisible data permeating the world and materialising in audiovisual concerts and installations. DREAM AMSTERDAM opens with a live performance from Ikeda at nightclub Paradiso on 6 June, followed on Midsummer’s Night on 21 June by an immersive audio work presented at one of the installation sites.
By registering at www.dreamamsterdam.nl visitors will be emailed the site locations when they are announced on 6 June.
For further information please contact:
Janette Scott, Media Consultant janettescottartspr@yahoo.co.uk
or Hannah Barnes at Forma on +44 (0)20… or hb@forma.org.uk
For DREAM AMSTERDAM contact Paul Verstraeten Communicatieon
on +31 (0)20… or email info@paulverstraeten.com
Notes to Editors
Ryoji Ikeda is Japan’s leading electronic composer and sound artist. His work focuses on the minutiae of ultrasonics, frequencies and the essential characteristics of sound. Since 1995, Ikeda has been intensely active through concerts, installations, and recordings, integrating sound, acoustics and sublime imagery. In the artist’s works, music, time and space are shaped by mathematical methods as Ikeda explores sound as sensation, pulling apart its physical properties to reveal its relationship with human perception.
Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. Using computer and digital technologies, his audiovisual concerts datamatics (2006 – present), C4I (2004 – 2007) and formula (2000 – 2006) suggest a unique orientation for our future multimedia environment and culture. His acclaimed installations data.tron [prototype] (2007), data.film nº1-a (2007), data.spectra (2005), spectra [for terminal 5, jfk] (2004), spectra II (2002) and db (2002) continue to diffuse Ikeda’s aesthetic of ‘ultra minimalism’. Ikeda’s data.tron also features in a group exhibition Place at Space – (re)shaping everyday life at Z33, Hasselt, Belgium until 25 May and datamatics [ver.2.0] will be performed at Auditorium Melotti, Rovereto Festival, Italy (7 May) and Marseille Festival, France (1 July). The World Premiere of test pattern [live set] is performed at Dissonanze in Rome, Italy (9 May). For the past five years, Forma has produced and toured all of Ikeda’s exhibition and performance projects worldwide and have been working with him for five years. www.ryojiikeda.com
Forma is one of Europe’s leading production agencies for high quality, interdisciplinary contemporary art. Collaborating with some of today’s most interesting artists, it produces, tours and publishes groundbreaking new projects that seamlessly combine diverse media including new hybrid forms of music, visual art, film, new media, dance and live art. Recent projects include collaborations with Antony and the Johnsons/Charles Atlas (Turning: Barbican, London, Romaeuropa Festival, Rome and others, 2007), Charles Atlas/Fennesz (Optronica Festival, BFI, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris and others, 2007), Carsten Nicolai/Ryuichi Sakamoto (insen: European, Asia and Australia tours, 2005 & 2006), Lone Twin (Town Crying, various locations north-east England, 2007)and Beck’s Fusions (ICA, London, 2007). Forma also represent the work of Ryoji Ikeda, Lynette Walworth and Gina Czarnecki.
Forma is supported by Arts Council England www.forma.org.uk
DREAM AMSTERDAM is organized by the Dream Amsterdam Foundation. DREAM AMSTERDAM is the concept of director and curator Jamain Brigitha. DREAM AMSTERDAM annually gives to an internationally acclaimed contemporary visual artist the opportunity to use Amsterdam as a source of inspiration, studio, material, décor and exhibition space. DREAM AMSTERDAM 2008 is realised in collaboration with UK arts production company Forma and takes place within the frame of the Holland Festival. The opening event on June 6, is realised in collaboration with Paradiso. DREAM AMSTERDAM 2008 is made possible by, amongst others, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, SNS REAAL Fund, Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts Design and Architecture, Amsterdam Partners – I Amsterdam and Philips. The energy used for the light installations is generated from sustainable, recycled resources. The DREAM AMSTERDAM Opening Event is on Friday 6 June from 20:30 with a special live concert and performance by Ryoji Ikeda and other international artists and DJs. www.dreamamsterdam.nl
Best wishes,
Hannah Barnes
Senior Communications Manager
Forma
Studio 115
Panther House
38 Mount Pleasant
London
WC1X 0AN UK
T +44 (0) 20 7837 7777
E hb@forma.org.uk
www.forma.org.uk
