Enter Ryoji Ikeda's "data-verse"
Giant Immersive Multimedia Installations Provoke Questions ... and Leave the Answers Up to You
03/06/2025
BY BAILEY CARR
This month, the High Museum of Art will be the first in the country to debut “Ryoji Ikeda: data-verse,” an exhibition of immersive multimedia installations reflecting the progressive digitalization of an integrated global society. The exhibition, on view from March 7 to August 10, 2025, will premiere both new and existing works by the artist that represent more than two decades of research in quantum physics and mathematics. Ikeda's stunning visuals and visceral score will have your mind racing at the speed of light.
“We’re really proud of this exhibition,” said Michael Rooks, High Museum Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “The High Museum tends to punch above its weight when it comes to doing new, ambitious things, and this is a first for us.”
About the Artist
Ryoji Ikeda (born Gifu, Japan, 1966) is one of the world’s leading composers and media artists. His immersive video projections, which are presented floor-to-ceiling onto the walls of the museum’s largest exhibition space, feature data visualizations and open-source imagery from institutions such as NASA, CERN and the Human Genome Project. “For Ikeda,” Rooks said, “the work is really about expressions and representations of infinity.”
Ikeda produced “data-verse,” a piece originally commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary, in three chapters, transforming open-source data sets through self-written code to create visual output, which he then synchronized and composed in arrangement with an electronic score.
Art That Provokes Questions More Than It Gives Answers
If you’re looking to read something about the artwork on a wall adjacent to the giant screens, you’re out of luck. At Ikeda’s request, the exhibition forgoes the use of informational placards as a way to encourage people to explore their own interpretations. Rooks commented, “The artist does not wish to lead someone to conclusions, but rather incite them to ask questions.”
Here’s a showstopper that will blow your mind: Denis Pernet, the Audemars Piguet curator who commissioned “data-verse,” remarked on the piece’s innovative approach, saying, “It was the first time that a representation of the entire universe as we know it had been actualized.”
Ikeda’s work immerses the audience in a seemingly endless flow of data and explores the macroscopic depths of the universe and our relationship to it. His U.S. debut finds a natural fit in Midtown Atlanta, where the intersection of art and technology has been growing ever stronger for many years as the district attracts more growth in both of these fields.
“This exhibition will be an experience unlike any we’ve offered before,” said the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. “The mesmerizing, almost hypnotic installations underscore the ever-changing, technologically manipulated nature of our world and how that can profoundly affect lives. We’re honored to be the first museum in the country to present Ikeda’s thought-provoking work.”
“Ryoji Ikeda: data-verse” is presented in the Cousins Family Special Exhibition Galleries on the Second Level of the High’s Wieland Pavilion. Learn more on the High Museum's website.
