Imagine trying to grasp the invisible river of data flowing throughout the planet. Ponder the phenomenon of binary code, and its appearance in the 21st century in virtually every device we own. Now think about attempting to display it – to somehow expose data in a way that makes both the quantity and transmission speed somewhat comprehensible to the (puny in some ways) human brain. That is what artist Ryoji Ikeda has done with the transfinite, a monumental “meditation on the concept of infinity,” now on view at the Park Avenue Armory through June 11. Using sophisticated digital projection accompanied with a precisely synchronized electronic soundtrack, Ikeda has transformed the cavernous space into a modern temple, in which the objects of worship are the binary building blocks that form our computers, our telephones, our listening, our communications, our exploration of other planets – the list is enormous.
When one enters the Drill Hall, the towering screen (45’ high by 60’ wide) is divided vertically down the middle, with twin black-and-white columns of bar code rushing down like waterfalls and spilling onto the floor. (Viewers can walk “onto” the piece, sans shoes.) The fast-moving patterns – changing every few minutes – are precisely synchronized with Ikeda’s electronic soundtrack, a mix of white noise clouds, sine waves and low murmurs, peppered with pinging high frequencies. One’s initial response is sheer amazement at the artist’s grasp of the technology and his ability to control it with such tautness and finesse.
But as the minutes go by (and here patience is rewarded), despite the hyperactivity of the graphics, a sense of calm begins to settle in – or perhaps, the reality of what you’re seeing begins to dwarf your ability to grasp it. Or maybe it’s a sign one’s brain is becoming accustomed to phenomena that it really shouldn’t be getting used to. It’s worth viewing from multiple angles: at first I stood off to one side, then walked forward, strolling right up to the screen. Later I backed away to get a view from the other side, before finally letting my feet straddle the line separating the two projections. I still can’t quite figure out what the experience did to my head. There is almost something sinister happening, as if the artist had figured out how to subtly brainwash people – but in the most soothing and awe-inspiring method imaginable. The sequence appears to repeat after about twenty minutes, but the piece plays with your sense of time; Ikeda's spell has that effect on you.
The second half, around the corner (the giant screens are set up back-to-back), explores a more explicit representation of binary code. Rows of numbers shuttle from side to side, up and down - hundreds of thousands of them - disappearing, reappearing. The sensation is like being shrunk to the size of an atom and placed inside a computer, surrounded by walls of code, constantly in relentless flux. On the floor, nine small markers - silent as cenotaphs - house monitors, facing up, with smaller versions of the data projected onscreen, like sparkling robots awaiting one’s bidding.
Here, a climactic point comes when the entire 45’ x 60’ screen is suddenly, completely filled with tiny white numbers against the black background. I tried to do a quick estimate and came up with around 1,000 horizontal lines of 1,500 characters each – or about one-and-a-half million digits. The sensation is utterly overwhelming, like hearing every single climax in all of Mahler’s symphonies simultaneously - or (thinking even larger) being presented with every single cell ever created, swarming past in a relentless mob of monumental patterns.
Silhouetted against either screen, onlookers gain an eerie nondescript quality – tiny figures wandering amid a vast sea of images without any chance of having an impact on what is happening. If that sounds depressing, it’s not. I felt as if I were witnessing the ongoing, eternal movement of the tiny components that make up our lives all around us, but rarely on view, or even comprehended. Ikeda has only created a gigantic lens – a ravishing microscope – which is as close as we're likely to get to experiencing this invisible universe for ourselves.
[Photos by James Ewing. Ryoji Ikeda’s the transfinite runs through Saturday, June 11.]
