Ryoji Ikeda’s “the transfinite” Is a Ghoulish, Epileptic Dive Into Information

For his first installation in the United States, Ryoji Ikeda has turned the Park Avenue Armory into a giant computer of the sort that Edgar Allen Poe might have imagined. Walk into the cavernous main hall — typically used for Army National Guard drills but now devoid of all visible Hummers – and you’re almost standing on “the transfinite,” which is made of a screen that drops from the ceiling, bends at a 90 degree angle, and reaches across the floor toward you. The barcode imagery flickers at speeds that makes you worry that you’re epileptic, against music that aggressively buzzes and percusses your eardrums. The opposite side of the screen is more serene, if you can call a whirring Matrix-like rapid scroll of anonymous code serene.

The whole thing suggests cyberpunk and ‘90s virtual reality movies, but also James Glieck’s recent exploration of the bit as the basic unit of everything; silhouettes against the screens suggest the shoe-less dreamers and meditators of a futuristic Phish concert. (You can go do it too, it’s okay – and if you’re a fan of the Singularity, don’t forget to try this.)

The whole concept is stunning, even if only briefly, even at a cost of $12, in large part because the size of the installation is so large. If the world of the Romantics was ruled by gorgeous, transporting landscapes, the landscapes of our digital world are sadly often limited to dull screens whose high definition glare can’t approach the vividness and scale of the natural world. Ikeda’s work is one impressionistic answer to that “problem,” a near-sublime tour through the soul of the machine, a machine that’s increasingly everywhere but whose real workings are becoming increasingly hard to see at all.

Detail of “Datamatics”:

“the transfinite” runs until June 12 at New York’s Park Avenue Armory

Videos by Marjorie Becker.