Born in 1966 in Gifu, Japan.
Lives and works in Paris, France and Kyoto, Japan.
Japan’s leading electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the essential characteristics of sound itself and that of visuals as light by means of both mathematical precision and mathematical aesthetics. Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. He elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, materials, physical phenomena and mathematical notions into immersive live performances and installations.
Alongside of pure musical activity, Ikeda has been working on long-term projects through live performances, installations, books and CD’s such as datamatics (2006-), test pattern (2008-), spectra (2001-), cyclo. a collaborative project with Carsten Nicolai, supersymmetry (2014), micro | macro (2015-), and more recently data.verse (2019).
His albums +/- (1996), 0°C (1998), matrix (2000), dataplex (2005), test pattern (2008) and supercodex (2013) pioneered a new minimal world of electronic music through his razor-sharp techniques and aesthetics. The Solar System (2016) a limited edition vinyl and music for percussion (2017) was released by The Vinyl Factory.
In 2012, he created the audiovisual performance superposition (2012-) for the Festival d’Automne à Paris, which has toured in more than twenty cities around the world.
In early 2018, accompanying the release of music for percussion [cd+booklet], he established his online source under the name codex | edition.
He performs and exhibits worldwide at spaces such as Singapore Art Museum, Ars Electronica Center Linz, Elektra Festival Montreal, Grec and Sonar Festivals Barcelona, Concertgebouw Brugge, The Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Aichi Triennale Nagoya, Palazzo Grassi Venice, Sharjah Biennial, Auckland Triennial, The Whitechapel Gallery London, The Barbican Centre, Somerset House London, Festival d’Automne à Paris, La Villette Paris, ACT Centre Gwangju, Singapore Art Science Museum, Kunstverein Hannover, RuhrTriennale, Garage Museum of contemporary art Moscow, UCLA Center for the art of performance Los Angeles, The MET, Crossing the Line Festival New York as well as Kyoto Experiment. He presented solo exhibitions and commission works at Park Avenue Armory New York, Museo de Arte Bogota, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, DHC/Art Montreal, MONA Museum Hobart – Tasmania, Telefonica Foundation Madrid, Carriageworks Sydney, HeK Basel and The Vinyl Factory London, among others.
In 2018-2019, he presented solo exhibitions at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Centre Pompidou Paris and Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam. He launched spectra as a permanent installation at Mona Hobart and presented a drone symphony, A [for 100 cars], commissioned by Red Bull Music Academy Festival Los Angeles. Ryoji Ikeda was commissioned by the LA Philharmonic for Fluxus Festival where he presented a new acoustic composition titled 100 cymbals, and collaborated with Hiroshi Sugimoto on a commission by the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris At the Hawk’s well. He presents works and performances at institutions such as Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, Centre Pompidou Shanghai, Bi-City Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture Shenzhen, Joan Miro Foundation Barcelona, Reina Sofia Museum Madrid, among others. Ikeda’s new audiovisual works, data-verse is commissioned by Audemars Piguet. The first variation of the trilogy was revealed at Venice Biennale 2019, ‘May You Live in Interesting Times’ curated by Ralph Rugoff. data-verse 1 and data-verse 2are presented as a solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
In 2020, Ikeda presents works at UCCA Beijing, a solo exhibition at 180 The Strand London, performances at Berlin Philharmonie - STROM festival, Asia TOPA Melbourne, and more. He is portrayed at Festival Musica Strasbourg, collaborates to the new performance of choreographer Pontus Lidberg for the Danish Dance Theatre - CENTAUR.
He is the award winner of the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN 2014.
