Nam June Paik Art Center (Director Namhee Park) is pleased to announce that the Jury of the 9th Nam June Paik Prize has selected Ryoji Ikeda (b. 1966, Japan) as the winner of the 9th Nam June Paik Prize. Born in Gifu, Japan, Ikeda is an internationally acclaimed media artist based in Paris, France, and Kyoto, Japan. One of Japan’s leading composers and artists, he has explored the essential characteristics of sound itself and the distinctive qualities of visuals realized as light, by means of mathematical precision and aesthetics. His practice convincingly bridges visual art and sonic art, and he has continued to present sensory and immersive live performances and installations that elaborately orchestrate sound, physical phenomena, and mathematical notions.

Ikeda expressed his gratitude upon receiving the Prize, stating, “I am deeply honored to receive the Nam June Paik Prize. I had the privilege of meeting Nam June Paik in his later years, and his work continues to resonate with the questions behind my own.”

Ellen Pau, co-founder and Artistic Director of Videotage in Hong Kong and a member of the Nomination Committee, stated in her recommendation: “Ryoji Ikeda’s future vision and relentless probing into emerging technologies, including data visualization, algorithmic processing, and signal theory, precisely resonate with the forward-thinking exploration Paik valorised. [...] Ikeda has made incomprehensible infrastructures sensorially legible and opened up civic discourse around information, surveillance and scale. His creative and politically aware inventiveness aligns with Paik’s legacy.”

In particular, John G. Hanhardt, an art historian and curator who has maintained a longstanding artistic exchange with Nam June Paik, served as Chair of the Jury. Following thoughtful and in-depth deliberations, the Jury selected Ryoji Ikeda as the recipient of the Prize. Hanhardt praised Ikeda’s work, stating, “Like Nam June Paik, he is creating challenging and open opportunities to learn and experience hybrid aesthetic texts that become for the viewer an adventure, a contemplative space, and an opportunity to expand one’s horizons of experience and knowledge. Like Paik, he is a true visionary who welcomes the mystery and adventure of new art forms.”

Sabine Himmelsbach, Director of the House of Electronic Arts (HEK) in Basel and a member of the Jury, emphasized that Ikeda “has fundamentally reshaped the aesthetic language of media art through the integration of sound, data, mathematics, computation, and immersive installations. His practice of translating scientific and computational systems into profound aesthetic experiences extends Paik’s experimental legacy into the age of data and algorithmic culture.”