Looking Outwards 11

I saw Ryoji Ikeda perform Supercodex Last year, and it was an intense experience. Although his piece was a performance, it was not a musical composition. He used data sets to inform the music and visuals that created the piece. The sound aspect was created entirely by clicks, and each click was distinguishable at the beginning of the piece. As the piece progressed, the click-frequency increased, and became keyed (and un-keyed) tones. Ikeda does not reveal much of his process, but it was clear he was manipulating and abstracting the input data to control and sway the crowd. One part that was neat was to hear the transformation from single clicks into “continuous” square waves. It was beneficial to hear that transformation because it was a good primer for talking about a computer’s process for breaking songs down into samples. Ryoji Ikeda is intense and loud.