Ryoji Ikeda

Ryoji Ikeda's visual art projects are typically portrayed in art installations in museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Singapore Art Science Museum. His art pieces are known for their use of projecting abrasive, strobelike data visualizations, as well as sound in “raw” states, much like that which is characteristic of his music. According to Ikeda, his intention with his artwork is “always polarized by concepts of the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘sublime’”(Wilson, 204). Most of his art installations and projects are intended to be very much open to interpretation, as Ikeda’s claims that it’s for the audience’s eyes, ears, and bodies (Lindholm). However, many of his installations are inspired by concepts in particle physics and quantum mechanics, such as in Supersymmetry and Superposition, likely inspired by his time during a residency at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (ryojiikeda.com). Ryoji Ikeda’s career in visual artwork, having started in 1998, is much longer than his career in music of which his first recordings weren’t published until 2008. Despite how far apart his careers in both mediums had their start, often the two forms are intertwined in his installations, with the background sound to many of the installations being either unique to the exhibition, or taken straight from an album by Ikeda. The earliest piece of visual art being credited to him being a piece titled 0°, as part of an installation titled Date / Place which was displayed in the Dutch city of Rotterdam in 1998 (ryojiikeda.com). In 2014, he was awarded the Collide International Award in collaboration with Ars Electronica, an award that awards the recipient with a residency at CERN, with the intention being to “give artists the opportunity to encounter the multi-dimensional world of particle physics”, according to Arts at Cern.“His most recent art project is titled X-Verse, consisting of the pieces Code-verse and Point of No Return. As of 2019, the project has been displayed in Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (ryojiikeda.com). Ryoji Ikeda has been a part of a collaborative group exhibitions such as Artistes and Robots and Experience Traps, but the vast majority of his material is solo. As of 2019, Ryoji Ikeda has been involved in over fifteen different solo art projects (ryojiikeda.com).

In 2014, Ikeda was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN 2014. As a result, he began his residency at CERN in July 2014 until 2015, during which he developed supersymmetry and micro | macro.

In May – June 2011 a presentation of three of the artist's immersive audio/visual projects, The Transfinite, was exhibited at the Park Avenue Armory.

In 2004, the dormant Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center (now Jetblue Terminal 5) at JFK Airport briefly hosted an art exhibition called Terminal 5 curated by Rachel K. Ward and featuring the work of 18 artists including Ikeda. The show featured work, lectures and temporary installations drawing inspiration from the idea of travel — and the terminal's architecture. The show was to run from October 1, 2004 to January 31, 2005 — though it closed abruptly after the building itself was vandalized during the opening party.

In addition to working as a solo artist, he has also collaborated with, among others, Carsten Nicolai (under the name "Cyclo.") and the art collective Dumb Type. His work matrix won the Golden Nica Award in 2001.