People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s...
Posted: 10/31/14
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All comments by Wilson
People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s superposition at Power Center:
I think your discussion of perception is exactly what is at stake with this performance. The popular misunderstanding and confusion of Ikeda’s performance, as you (and I and many others) initially experienced is because we cannot (could not) conceive of a mind so imaginative that it can perceive the concepts of quantum science as philosophy and art. In short, we are so trained to think about science and perceive the world of science in such a limited way as to not be able to see the world as Ikeda sees it. Like you said, it is a matter of our limited perception. We, the audience, and Ikeda live in different worlds, see through different eyes, comprehend science in vastly different ways, so different in fact, that we can’t find meaning in his performance and we never will unless we perceive the world the way he does. But as our perception is limited, so is Ikeda’s: the frustration we feel comes from this dissonance, he can’t, with his perception, communicate with the vast majority of the audience. This idea of an infinite nature we reach out to and attempt to perceive is such a fascinating one, its a shame we cannot talk to Ikeda about his world because for once I’d like to participate in the world of science in such a subjective and poetic way.
How can you represent what there are no words or images for? It’s easy to become frustrated when looking for the artistic “profoundness” of Ikeda’s work. I, personally, saw the unpredictable, blinding pattern of strobes on stage and tried to make sense, to find a pattern. I heard all the white noise, the atonal tuning forks, and grimaced as I silently pleaded for some resolution, for some tonal concord to satisfy my expectations. The more I searched, the more Ikeda’s work failed to satisfy; the more I tried to lump the piece into my conceptions of what makes “sense,” the more I found that it simply does not. My trouble, like the trouble many others were having, is that I could not come to terms with, to accurately describe, Ikeda’s greater “meaning.”
"As I look back on it now, however, I can see how this supposed issue with Ikeda’s work is, in fact, its genius. Ask yourself, if you will, how you can represent something without words, without symbols. This is, in actuality, a pressing question for both technology and art. We can represent “0” and “1” and “tonal” and “sensible,” but how can we represent something such as Ikeda’s work, which does not fit into our defined categories?
Think of performance in terms of quantum numbers or Schrodinger’s cat; a number can be both “0” and “1” just like the cat is both alive and dead. The moment we try to look in Schrodinger’s box, the moment we try to identify and term the cat as alive of dead, we force it to be either one or the other. In using quantum numbers, we can store “infinitely” more knowledge than with simple binary-code, but the second we try to examine that stored knowledge, to categorize it, we force it to limit itself to either a “0” or a “1.” We simply cannot comprehend something being “un-representable,” we try so hard to represent and comprehend that we will confine something until it can be so. This is the paradoxical idea of Ikeda’s proposal. Our senses are infinite as proved by Superposition; we can sense each nuance of light and sound of Ikeda’s creation, but our perception is fallible. The moment we try to come to terms with what we sense, we limit it, force it to put itself in terms we can comprehend. “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
This speaks not only to Ikeda’s work, but I believe it speaks to art as a whole. We recognize that our perceptions are unique; but inherent to this idea, they must also be limited. By spending our time in the theater trying to perceive and comprehend each detail of a performance, such as Ikeda’s work, we shut off all other possibilities. We force it to become zeroes and ones. I think Ikeda’s work is more profound after the fact; I spent too long in the theater trying to understand it, and it made me frustrated. Looking back, I see the poetry in just letting the cat be both alive and dead, letting the white noise be nothing but white noise.
by Gabe
People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s superposition at Power Center:
The idea of the two performers “singing” to one another (and the audience) is a strangely imaginative and metaphorical concept, frankly, a way of perception I was unable to manage, but can appreciate. I think that is something this performance did best: to allow us to examine and perceive our world in a slightly (or vastly) different way. I too found the two performers to be the most interesting aspect of the performance; they were also the only performing and unscripted part. At the same time though, I wasn’t sure why they are made to be so distinct from one another and the stage. I’m sure you also noticed that their pacing was slightly off when tapping out their messages so that one had to wait for the other and as you pointed out, one is male while the other is female, which are clearly important details, but why? I’m curious as to what you (or anyone) thinks about this very deliberate decision when so much of the performance is scripted or otherwise mechanical. Again, this gap between the the performance and the audience appears when you mention that the performance is deeply rooted in “the concepts of universality, beauty, humanity, and the art and science”, which I saw (or knew that I was supposed to see). That’s a great observation and I agree that those appear to be the main themes of the performance but there are no details for me, what exactly does Ikeda have to say about those things? So much of this performance is vague and there appears to be such a disconnect with the audience I can’t seem to agree that this was indeed a “great” performance.
I thought the performance was truly spectacular! Watching the performance reminded me of being in a planetarium where all the images move around you. You are simultaneously in awe and feel small, while feeling quite transcendent. A lot of the performance was accompanied by celestial white noise, which I enjoyed.
Surprisingly, one of the most stimulating features for me was the text on the right and left sides of the screen. The sentence structure and text were often very similar, however the meanings both complemented and contradicted each other. I viewed the text almost as lyrics to a song, which seemed most appropriate, as the two performers used their telegraphic contraptions as voice boxes to “sing” the text on the screen. I felt as if it were very important for there to be both a male and female performer on the stage. The performers tapping and the background sound were both very succinct and simplistic in their tonal qualities, although sometimes I felt as if the visual and auditory stimuli combined were meant to overwhelm the audience. There were times in the performance when I felt uncomfortable with the stimuli and was compelled to close my eyes or cover my ears. That would be appropriate in light of the performance’s deep involvement with the concepts of universality, beauty, humanity, and art and science. I think Ikeda wanted to convey the discomfort we have with grand universal truths through this overwhelming stimulus and discomfort, but it is just a thought.
"by Yimeng Zhao
People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s superposition at Power Center:
A visceral and out of this world performance that you should experience once (and no more than once) in your life.
Did Superposition challenge my perceptions of art and the relationship between technology and the performer while at the same time providing philosophical underpinnings through the medium of collected data and physical sensations? Yes.
Did the performance make me feel physically unwell through a myriad of overwhelming physical sensations that ranged from the bombardment of high-pitched noises to flashing lights darting across the screen faster than the eye can follow? Also yes.
This was one of those strange nights where members of the audience both stood up and left twenty minutes into the show and gave a near standing ovation to a bowing Ikeda at the performance’s end. Never have I been apart of an experience so polarized. It was clear that while the audience left with a mixed sense of confusion and curiosity, the allure of Ikeda’s artistic rendering (performance?) was not only intriguing but respectable.
Sure, I could have used an explanation or maybe even a hint at the meaning of the piece, like how does the art and the science and the stage come together to create something more meaningful? Or why does Ikeda employ live performers when so much of the show is mechanized? Or perhaps even what the title Superposition has to do with the physics term “superposition”? To me, so much of the piece was confusing and perplexing and otherwise strange I had a difficult time un-jumbling my thoughts and putting an answer to those questions.
The performance, if anything, was strangely therapeutic to me. It was a trance-like experience of epic proportions, something of a hypnotists fever dream. At some point I became oddly distanced from the whole ordeal, zoned out if you will, becoming unthinking about a performance that asks you to think about thinking, and while I’m unsure about what that entails, it was certainly an experience to remember.
Did I enjoy my evening with Superposition? Not exactly, but the performance does compel and force you to talk about it, to question it, to think through it and perceive the world in a way never before done, and that’s a rare kind of magic, in both art and science.