Sophie Chen – Looking Outwards – 04

Ryoji Ikeda – Data.path

video documentation of data.path installation in Madrid.

As a video & media design major, I’ve always been interested in the relationship between audio and visuals, as the relationship between the two is integral to each other’s existence and they inevitably affect how the other is perceived. Ryoji Ikeda is a Japanese artist whose creations’ embodies what audio and visual working together are like. Data.path is one of his pieces that combines video projections and the architectural environment through which the viewers move. His moving images are created using data such as computer codes, molecular structures, astronomical coordinates, etc that are synchronized with the audio, and projected on walls 20 meters long. I find his synchronization of audio and visual, digital generation of the visual content, and use of scale to immerse the audience into this synchronization to be very inspiring as it shows the power that audio-visual data has.