## Adrian Grecu - Cyber Island
[https://play.decentraland.org/?position=44,85](https://play.decentraland.org/?position=44,85)


An island is a real place and, at the same time, an ideal site. Island is a widespread motif
in almost every culture, most often described as a special, out-of-this-world land. For how
else such a place can be as long as it is surrounded by waters, since it is born of waters,
confronting the waters. The references to the theme of the island are multiple: from the
Greek Mythology’s Isles of the Blessed (or The Fortunate Isles), to the Arthurian legend of
Avalon, from Hinduism’s idea of island as a symbol of (inner) peace, to the island as a
heterotopia of deviance, as Foucault has put it, this time in the digital sphere.
All these layers of meanings are somehow present in Adrian Grecu’s islands, even if these
cultural references do not appear explicitly. They don’t even have to! What emanates from
Grecu’s images instead is the spiritual and symbolic dimension of the island as a kind of
isolated reality, a magical world that is not necessarily true and, at the same time, a space
for the manifestation of one’s own identity, of self-searching, the terrain of free
expression of the imagination.

Adrian Grecu’s artistic imagination dwells in the digital space. And this for almost 30
years, since he is a veteran of digital art, at least in his part of the world. The motif of
the island appeared in the ’90s when he produced the first CGI images. The island was then
rather the sign of a critical attitude towards an alienating (post)totalitarian society, a
representation of the isolation felt in relationship with a distant Europe then still defined
on the ruins of the Iron Curtain. This first interpretation of the island – with the skeleton
suggesting life and death, a sort of updated Vanitas – set an important precedent for his
work, and not only at the discursive level. Adrian Grecu remained firmly committed to the
digital, to 3D modeling, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality interactions and applications.
The exhibition “Cyber Island”, constitutes an overview and a sort of fulfillment of this
long-time preoccupations, both in terms of the symbolic and/or political references, and in
terms of the visual approach and CGI techniques employed. This time, as the artist maintains,
“the space has evolved towards organic, towards the vegetal, towards emphasizing details and
fluid characters, similar to thinking processes, in a continuous, dynamic transformation.”
Moreover, the element of time, present in the animations on the screens and in the Augmented
Reality application which plausibly relates the physical object to the virtual world, gives
the works not only the authenticity of the meeting with the viewer, but also the suggestion
of a stream of consciousness.

Indeed, the subtle use of meanings beyond the appearance of things is one of the main
preoccupations of the artist Adrian Grecu. This is how the central theme of the “Cyber Island” should be seen: a reference to the idea of journey, of search and experimentation, a
reference to the creation of a (cyber)-place where the imaginary becomes possibility.
Horea Avram

Adrian Grecu (b. 1969) is a Romanian artist, one of the pioneers of digital art in Romania.
His first digital artwork dates back to 1993. In the decades that followed, he extensively
used Computer Generated Image (CGI), 3D graphics, and animation software, his endeavors being reflected in articles and comments published in various cultural journals. His work has been featured in collective exhibitions and festivals in Japan, Poland, South Korea, USA, Belgium, etc., and was presented in personal exhibitions in Romania and in the USA.
In the recent years, the artist focuses on exploring the limits of the visual medium, the
capabilities provided by technology and the expansion of the conceptual framework, working at
the confluence between arts/ creativity and the latest technologies. Thus, his current
artistic production includes Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) incorporated in
complex, innovative sculptural installations, presented in a number of widely acclaimed
exhibitions.

One of the artist’s trademarks are the sophisticated scenes with fantastic/dystopic themes
defined by realistic textures and forms, elaborated entirely on the computer, without the use
of photography, or other analog interventions. Rendered in 3D modeling techniques with the
help of special software and successive filtering procedures, the works are presented as
digital images on monitors, or printed in limited series on surfaces (paper, alubond, or
canvas), each of them signed and numbered.

Adrian Grecu’s constant preoccupation for digitality has not distanced him from materiality
and sculptural forms, most of his projects aiming to problematize the relationship and
interaction between the material and the virtual world, between the real and the possible.
His recent exhibition at the Museum of Art Cluj, in the summer of 2022, entitled
Retroperspective. A digital manifesto, is relevant for this preoccupation. The project included series of CGI works and 3D animations from the 90’s until 2022 integrated in object-
based installations. Not merely a retrospective, the exhibition had also a prospective dimension: it was assumed as a manifesto which affirms artist’s conceptual and working principles in the field of digital art, ones that are anchored on new aesthetic paradigms, in
contrast with traditional art and visual practices

An island is a real place and, at the same time, an ideal site. Island is a widespread motif
in almost every culture, most often described as a special, out-of-this-world land. For how
else such a place can be as long as it is surrounded by waters, since it is born of waters,
confronting the waters.

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Adrian Grecu - Cyber Island

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