Darkness and light

What in hells bells is going on here you may ask? Well, it’s art daaahling. Or rather a picture of what we had to put on our feet waiting to go into the Ryoji Ikeda exhibition at 180 The Strand a few weeks ago. Sexy, non? Hilarious that we had to wear white overshoes rather than the not quite cool enough blue ones (and let’s not get into the flippin’ insane amounts of single use plastics we’ve been going through as a planet in the past 16 months). Ahem.

This gal certainly got the monochrome memo (actually I’m just remembering that I wore black and white too, haha). So, unusually for an exhibition you could take pictures with phones but NOT with a DSLR. I’ve never come across that distinction before, and it made me feel a bit cheated, but good girl that I am I complied.

So what the hells bells is going on here you may ask - again. Ikeda’s works are mainly a combination of digital and sound work, and here we’re looking at monitors with graphics moving up and down them.

And here we had to walk through a section that was lit by bright fluorescent tubes. As we went through we tried to look up and keep our eyes open but it was impossible, our eyes just kept shutting. So weird to have your body involuntarily do something that you were definitely trying to the opposite of.

I don’t take Oomoo on as many exhibitions as I used to as he doesn’t seem that interested, but I’ll go back with him to this one.

At this point I got a bit miffed and broke the rules and used my proper camera. You can’t always be a good girl.

D looking into the light.

In the main room, with three screens showing all sorts of amazingness.

Close up of a screen.

180 The Strand is a repurposed office block that has become an art venue. I’ve seen several exhibitions here, and none of them have used the same layout or used the same rooms. You always have to walk through it differently. Must be a dream to curate in.

This section was extremely photogenic, so it deserves two pictures.

It’s so strange to not be able to show what any of this actually is like as it’s not static like the pictures make it out to be, but actually quite intense, as the graphics move very fast and the sound that goes with it very loud. This film clip explains it way better and gives you an idea of how intense (and clever) a Ryoji Ikeda exhibition actually is. WARNING: CONTAINS STROBING

I like how this group of fellow visitors look like they’ve been choreographed to all do the same thing at the same time - apart from the guy on the right of course. If you find yourself in London before the 18th of September - GO GO GO! If not, keep an eye out for an Ikeda exhibition near you in the future - it’s worth waiting for.