Ryoji Ikeda: ACC Focus 2025

The National Asian Culture Center (ACC) is pleased to announce 2025 ACC Focus: Ryoji Ikeda, an exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the institution and its long-standing partnership with world-renowned audiovisual artist Ryoji Ikeda. This significant showcase will be open to the public from July 10 to December 28, 2025, at ACC Creation Space 3 and 4 in Gwangju, South Korea, with free admission for all ages.

Ryoji Ikeda, born in Gifu Japan in 1966, is a prominent composer and audiovisual artist recognised for his pioneering work in electronic sound and data, often treating data not merely as information but as aesthetic material that engages the human senses. Currently residing in Paris, France, and Kyoto, Japan, Ikeda’s art explores the fundamental elements of sound and image through mathematical, physical, and aesthetic approaches. Since the mid-1990s, he has gained an international reputation for his ability to work convincingly across both visual and sonic media, with his concerts and exhibitions seamlessly integrating sound, acoustics, and sublime imagery. His artistic strategy is deeply rooted in mathematical principles, using aesthetic qualities of mathematics to create immersive experiences.

The 2025 ACC Focus: Ryoji Ikeda is designed to be more than a retrospective, demonstrating how both Ikeda and ACC have evolved over the past decade. This exhibition highlights Ikeda’s work becoming increasingly philosophical and conceptual, while ACC has cemented its position as a leading platform for experimental and convergent art in Asia. A key piece recalling their initial collaboration is test pattern (n˚8) (2015), large-scale installation first presented as ACC’s first-ever commission project. This work transforms various types of everyday data, including text, images, and sounds, into high-speed black-and-white barcodes and binary sequences, accompanied by intensely vibrating electronic sound. In its 2015 presentation, test pattern (n˚8) (2015) was projected across an 33-meter-long screen on the floor using eight DLP projectors and sixteen speakers, submerging viewers in a sensory overload that exposed the limits of cognition and the overwhelming force of digital systems. 

This exhibition introduces seven artworks, including four pieces specially commissioned by ACC to commemorate the enduring partnership between the artist and the institution. Among these new commissions is the audiovisual installation data.flux (n˚2) (2025), which features 10-meter-long LED screens on the ceiling displaying constantly moving imagery with geometric patterns based on DNA data, creating profound experiences. Another commissioned site-specific installation, critical mass (2025), intensifies viewers’ senses with sounds depicting a drastic contrast between a black circle and white light projected onto 100㎡ floor screen. Furthermore, the exhibition will premiere the sleeping beauty (2025) series, which consists of twelve works, representing the only non-immersive pieces in this collection. Also featured is data.gram (n˚8) (2025), a work derived from Ikeda’s renowned data-verse 1/2/3 (2019–2020). The data-verse trilogy, a key piece from his oeuvre that began in 2000, is an audiovisual symphonic suite that encompasses all scales of nature, from elementary particles to the universe. It processes massive scientific datasets from sources such as NASA, CERN, and The Human Genome Project, transforming them into visual and sonic experiences that unveil the hidden dimensions of our world. Notably, this exhibition allows viewers to experience the entire data-verse trilogy displayed at once on aligned screens along a 40-meter-long wall. The exhibition also provides an opportunity to revisit other significant works that exemplify Ikeda’s data-driven compositions, such as point of no return (2018) and exp #1 (2020). ACC invites the audience to this extraordinary moment to explore the intersection of art, technology, experimentation, and imagination, revisiting the ACC’s past and envisioning its future shaped together with Ryoji Ikeda.