Traditional painting and sculpture no longer adequately capture the world in which we live.   Time and technology have again caught up with the art world.  By definition, life is anything but static.   So, why not an art that is dynamic? After all, is that not what both Kinetic Art and Abstract Expressionism were all about?  Energy, motion, life, light, contrast: Everything all at once or one at a time.

Our visual language has continued to develop over the years.  And since the making of art is a deeply personal effort, something else has had to develop.   Something as unique as the moment which we inhabit.

Our spirit, our time, is composed of both energy and objects.  My current path of exploration is in the creation of objects which transform the historically static observer into a dynamic participant.  This is achieved by concealing different types of sensors connected to handcrafted electronic circuitry concealed within traditional art media.

In the 1986 piece Zen, a female figure composed of light and motion materializes for a few moments from blackness, only to vanish just as quickly as she arrived.  With Riddle (1992), the invisible is rendered visible as sound is transformed into light.

After Soul (1994), I became preoccupied with the problem of erasing the presence of objects and intimations of technological sleight of hand.  It was only by deconstructing the symbols I had begun to use as a vocabulary that I was able to free the spirit that is the essence of the work.

Zoe, (1995), was a painstakingly constructed computer mediated installation in which the seemingly empty volume of a museum space mysteriously allowed for creative participation.   Translated from Greek, "Zoe" means "Life."   The challenge was to have the artwork be a metaphor for the mystery of being, of life.

The installation operation was deceptively simple.  The viewer entered a darkened space where upon concealed sensors detected human presence. A bank of colorfully gelled theatrical lights switched softly on, illuminating a large area.  For a short time (two minutes) we were able to move and dance about making music or noise with the movements of our shadows until the piece "died."  There was no returning to enliven the work until (optimistically) the next cycle began.

Whether it is the exploration of love and loss, loneliness and companionship, living or dying, the challenge for me is to create propositions for the participant to take issue with - stimulating both reason and imagination.

© Peter Terezakis, NYC 1996