exhibition: the transfinite

In 'The Transfinite', Japanese artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda utilizes the digital building block of binary codes to display human’s captivation and bewilderment with technology. Filling the massive 55,000-square-foot exhibition hall with his video and sound installations, Ikeda created an immersive audio-visual environment at the Park Avenue Armory in New York’s Upper East Side. As one walks into the hall they encounter a 45-foot-tall, 60-foot-wide vertical screen, where Ikeda has projected barcode-like black-and-white lines, which pulse to an audio component that is being dictated by binary codes (programmed by the artist). The other side, also a screen, displays the inner workings of the installation, showing digital renderings of both the binary codes and the programming used to create the light projections on the opposite screen. Many viewers were awestricken by the work, approaching and examining the hypnotizing light and sound patterns, as though encountering something from a foreign universe. continue reading.