To infinity and beyond: the spectacular sensory overload of Ryoji Ikeda’s art

Incandescent light, the thud of Kyoto nightclubs, particle physics … it all goes into Ryoji Ikeda’s extraordinary sensory symphonies. He talks about his upcoming show at 180 The Strand

Ryoji Ikeda has delivered some dazzling assaults on the senses over his 25-year career: a beach in Rio de Janeiro bathed in his unique palette of light; New York’s Times Square given over to his black and white flickering patterns. But for his next show, the Japanese artist and composer is taking things underground. Ikeda’s biggest exhibition in Europe to date concerns the exposed underbelly of 180 The Strand in London, which he has reimagined as staves, notes and bar lines – with himself as the conductor, “orchestrat[ing] everything into a symphony”.

Beginning with a single light beam piercing the rafters, the exhibition carries the viewer through an incandescent corridor of white light and into a room filled with a ring of immense, super-directional speakers reverberating at concert pitch. To Ikeda, this is “opera” with light and sound. “There’s the intro, the welcome piece, then the crescendo [and] climax. It’s a long journey.”

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