Becky,

I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you and the others who also commented that the loud noises were distracting and/or took away from the performance. I do agree that Ikeda’s loud, abnormal noises were uncomfortable, but I think that was the whole point.

By pushing the audience so far out of our comfort zone of what a performance usually is, Ikeda forced us to change our way of thinking. Without the jarring sound effects, I do not think we would have been as affected by his work.

If the performance had only been images it would have been marginally less effective, and more like other performances. In other words, I think Ikeda’s sound is unique, and cannot effectively be separated from his images.

Eliana

When the lights went out at Power Center this Saturday a little after 8pm, my heart began to race. And, if I am being honest, my palms were sweating. Why would I react like this? I’ve been to tons of performances; musicals, concerts, plays, uncomfortable drunken songs from my grandpa, but I have never felt nervous before any of those performances began. In the moment after the auditorium went dark and before Ryoji Ikeda’s screens turned on I knew the answer. I had never been to a performance like Ikeda’s Superposition and I was afraid. It turned out I had good reason to be. Superposition scared me because it forced me to think about the world in a way I had never fathomed before. I believe that is the purpose of art. To me, Superposition was not just a statement about the movement towards quantum mechanics, and I don’t think Ikeda intended it to be. It really made me think about the whole world, about how everything is infinitely happening and changing and it is almost impossible for people to understand, and yet because life is so mysterious that is why it is worth living; so we can chase the mystery, and move forward in our limited understanding. Ikeda’s work does not set out to answer all of life’s questions, because that would just be impossible. His screens and flashing images and non-traditional music place the questions in the audiences’ hands, and allows us to think about them- allows maybe even to change the way we think.