Decode

December 17th, 2009

Last week the V&A in London opened a new show titled Decode – Digital Design Sensations. The exhibition, co-curated by onedotzero, showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations.

Exhibition poster: Prototypes from the Flowers series, 2009 Daniel Brown

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a ticket to the opening and whilst not everything in the show was my kettle of fish, a few works really stood out. I’ll focus on those.

Daniel Rozin’s Weave Mirror installation was one of the highlights for me. Ok- I’ve seen about a million pictures of it (check out Troika’s Digital by Design book, for instance) but I’d never seen it in person. Beautifully done- the work had a really organic feeling to it despite the somewhat complex network of electronics carefully integrated into the back. If there was one ‘I put my hand up, you show me putting my hand up’ installation I’d want in my house, it’d be this one.

http://www.smoothware.com/danny/

Equally worthy of mention was Troika’s Digital Zoetrope, originally commissioned for onedotzero’s 2008/09 festival. From Troika’s website:

“The idea for the zoetrope comes directly from the festivals ‘adventures in motion’ payoff and this year’s theme ‘Citystates’.”

“We wanted to create a container that both celebrated the heritage of motion arts as well as its digital present while affording us a very literal medium for the content – the idea of altered states through motion.”

http://troika.uk.com/

At the slightly more aggressive end of the scale, Ryoji Ikeda’s piece in the show was probably my favourite. Ok. Equal favourite. I saw him Live at the Paradiso in Amsterdam a couple of years ago and whilst I must say that I can generally handle experimental music, this really tested me. The set was about half an hour long and after 20 minutes I was unsure if I was going to make it to the end. I loved every second of it, but it was so intense.

He describes his work at the V&A, data.scan, as an attempt to materialise the vast quantities of data surrounding us in our everyday lives. It is part of Ikeda’s ongoing datamatics series, a collection of works that investigate the minutiae and infinite qualities of data.

For the sound element of the work, Ryoji opts for high frequencies which cut through even the chaos of the opening night, in a room which was probably already a little over-crowded with works before it was filled with people.

http://www.ryojiikeda.com/

Decode is on now at the V&A and runs through to April 11, 2010. I’ll definately be back to check it out one more time. I’m curious what Jason Bruges created in the garden. On the night of the opening they closed if off before I made it out there.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/Decode/index.html

Entry Filed under: Events