Japanese Artist Terumasa Ikeda’s Hyper-Futuristic Collaboration with Ressence

Japanese fine artist and Raden technique specialist Terumasa Ikeda’s latest mesmerizing masterwork happens to be a collaboration with Belgian horological innovator Ressence. Limited to eight pieces, the TYPE 9 Ikeda timepiece features a Chinese black lacquer dial with embedded mother-of-pearl details. The latter acts like an optical illusion—conjuring the sensations of a digital screen. With an ancient craft, the artist transforms the otherwise minimal (for Ressence) TYPE 9 into a science-fiction relic.

The visual collision—or harmony—of Ressence’s proprietary ROCS display technology and the use of the Raden technique begets a timepiece unlike any other. “The style of Ikeda-san’s work is extremely futuristic, yet the way he makes it is extremely traditional,” Ressence’s founder, Benoît Minitiens, tells Surface. “That tension between those two dimensions really caught my attention. The magic Ikeda-san offers with this effect—the mother of pearl changes color as you move it, and we have a dial that rotates—there is a very magical result you get by combining the two.”

“I have long pursued the transformation of information into art,” Ikeda-san shares with Surface through a translator. “The first time I observed the movement of this mechanism, it evoked silent orbital motions unfolding in darkness. It felt as though I were suspended in the cosmos.” It’s this sensation that the artist heightens for the wearer.

The digital aesthetic effect was part of the artistic dialogue behind its inception. “I sought to create a design that feels as though one has fallen into an ocean of data,” he continues. “We inhabit a world saturated with signals, where time is instantly accessible. Yet this mechanical watch restores time to the body. Through its physical movement and its deep black surface, it creates an immersive field—an interface where spirit and matter converge.”