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This performance left me more conflicted than anything else. Leaving the Power Center, I could not decide whether I was intrigued or confused. Part of me really enjoyed the ingenuity and creativity of Ikeda’s production. The performance was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I did not know what to expect and was, for the most part, always entertained. The various scenes and constantly changing sounds and visuals assured entertainment. The fact that the two actors controlled most of the visuals was incredibly enticing, as it was as if our reality was being fused with the apparent reality of the performance. Seeing individuals influencing the performance so significantly made it feel more real and applicable to the reality of the audience.
Another part of me was confused the entire time, as I continually was trying to understand what the performance was actually about. I spent most of the performance thinking about what I was supposed to take away from the performance. In the beginning, I thought that all the numbers and patterns were supposed to symbolize the repetition and randomness in life. Then when the actors typed the long messages of Morse code, I thought that Ikeda was trying to convey a certain point when in reality the messages made little to no sense to me. This might have been due to my view, as I was sitting in the balcony and one of the large screens was partially blocked by the large speakers. Never the less, I became more confused, and in turn more frustrated that I did not understand the purpose. Later, when the various satellite images appeared, I was more intrigued but still confused about the objective of the performance.
In general, I am happy I attended Superposition. Although I left thoroughly confused, I was able to see a truly contemporary performance that exceeded my expectations.

All comments by Carolyn

People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s superposition at Power Center:

I never thought about the performance in this way. Now that you point out the relationship between chaos and order, I see the performance in an entirely new way! The performance placed a heavy emphasis on the difference between chaos and order in the various visual elements. By constantly switches between the two, Ikeda was able to accurately illustrate how order can so quickly become immense chaos and disorder. This comparison of chaos and order was particularly evident during the scene with the several round beads that rolled across the projector. At first there was a few beads and soon enough there were too many to count. The scene began calm and almost soothing, but soon grew to become chaotic and quite overwhelming.

In response to:
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I was exhilarated by Ryoji Ikeda’s superposition. Having walked into the Power Center not knowing exactly what to expect, I left the performance awestruck and enamored by the dazzling display of images, lights, sounds, and the actors’ interaction with technology. This reaction was one that did not seem to be shared by the majority of my classmates. One aspect of this piece which I found fascinating was its exploration of the relationship between order and chaos. This was evident from the very beginning when points were being plotted on a graph. At first, this occurred slowly: each point plotted was easily distinguished by sight as well as by sound (with its accompanying “beep”). The rate at which points were being plotted as well as the number of graphs eventually began to increase. The sound crescendoed, the visuals became overwhelming, and apparent chaos ensued; however, the audience knew that this apparent randomness came from the highly ordered plotting of Cartesian coordinates. Later in the piece, the opposite of this chaos-from-order occurred: the apparent randomness of rolling marbles was superimposed with calculated graphs of their distance from a central point and relative angles. This could be interpreted as an attempt to derive highly logical, calculable, mathematical meaning from a disorderly incident. Ultimately, I saw superposition as a criticism of humanity’s constant attempt to mediate the world to make it more intelligible. Religion, science, and mathematics are all artificial frames created to resolve fear of unknowability. The visual and auditory assaults throughout superposition force the audience to have a pure experience – sheer intensity, no mediation.
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by Ben Iuliano