Alexandr Grigorev｜Capture the beauty of everything around us
theFOUND Virtual Art Center this TALK with Alexandr grigorev，a multidisciplinary practical artist, designer and architect from Russia. In his opinion, technical means such as parameterization and virtual reality are just methods, just like poets' pens or pencils. He made natural phenomena full of emotion, drama and poetry, connecting the human world and the natural world, as if he had opened a key to understand the phenomena of the surrounding world and integrated public life with art.
Alexandr grigorev born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1985, his work is to study a new beauty and visual language unique to the 21st century. In order to create works of art, he used the most advanced modeling methods, cooperated with algorithms and formulas, and studied and tried to reach new forms beyond the limits of human imagination with his studio.
At the same time, the philosophical ideas in his works of art are inextricably linked with natural forms. Each work is an interpretation of natural phenomena in the new digital world. He wants to use a new visual language to achieve the feeling of meditation, including poetic expression and meditation on water or grass in the wind.
We can feel that Alexandr grigorev is a poet who keeps connected to everything around him. He told us that he hoped to transform nature into the design product of the real material world and link it with human life.
His design is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, including conceptual furniture, architecture, sculpture and art installations. In the future, Alexandr grigorev said that he hopes to further deepen the research in the field of vr virtual reality and collection art design. He hopes to participate in the exploration in the new universe of digital virtual. At the same time, he also sees the great trend of the integration of art and daily life. We expect more of his works of art to make beauty a part of our daily life.
"Everything I do is to capture the extraordinary beauty of the world around me."
Q&A
theFOUND & Alexandr grigorev
Q1:
Could you share with us how this concept started in the first place?
“It came from my childhood. I have always loved to look at nature and saw it’s transcendent beauty, a harmony beyond imagination. I liked to lose myself in this calmness. I guess it was meditation, but I just didn't understand how to name it. It is said that practitioners of Buddhism transfer this experience to the next life, probably this is the case.
At the same time, things created by man usually seem to me primitive and boring in comparison with nature. I wanted to find a way to work with natural complexity and randomness, but to fill it with meaning, emotional content peculiar to a human. And computer design, algorithms allowed me to do it.
Parametrics, VR are just methods...like a pen or pencil for poets. I see that a lot of artists become victims of method, tools starts to control them and determine their creation. I don’t care too much about the title of my methods and creative fields. Just trying to do what feels right. ”
Q2:
What kind of experience makes you choose nature as your source of inspiration and creation?
“It is closely connected with the previous question. Everything I do is an attempt to capture the transcendent inhuman beauty of the surrounding world.
But we must understand that natural phenomena are not art. They have no emotional content, no meaning for the human. It's like a separate world existing without us.
I wanted to fill natural phenomenons with feelings, drama ... to connect the world of people and the world of nature. As if giving a person a key to the phenomena of the surrounding world. Therefore, each series, each work is not a replica of nature, but interpretation. The transformation of a sterile phenomenon into an object of art, as individual meaningless sounds combined together turns into words.”
Q3:
Could you share with us what you want to produce with visitors through your works What about emotional communication and experience?
“I want to force visitors to be beyond the limits of their thoughts.For example, when we look at the sea, it's so complex and hypnotic that it simply can’t be realized by the human mind… Our consciousness shuts down and we become pure observation. The separation of the viewer and the event that we observe disappears. It’is a pure presence and existence here and now. This is the feeling that I try to convey in my works. ”
Q4:
Could you share with us the influence of Russian art and culture on your creation?
“Russian culture (and my Russian nationality) determine my perception of the world around me as a living being. With which it is necessary to be united, not to fight with it, but to follow the flow.
In general, Russians tend to perceive all aspects of the surrounding reality as God. And the whole life of a person seems to be a personal interaction with God ... from here, the whole world seems to be thinking, feeling, and alive. At the same time, life is not just a passive contemplation, but an interaction with a thinking being.
It's probably because of the heavy weather... This perception of the world comes from the ancient Slavs, who also identified nature with living beings, spirits…”
Q5:
Could you talk about "blue smoke" this project with us? Will there be more forms of evolutionary creation for this series?
“An important component of this series is symmetry. It turns natural phenomena into objects of art. Giving completeness, turning them into drama, into poetics...
Like the rest of my series, it will most likely be transformed into collectible design objects, architectural forms and space, jewelry, and so on.… But all this happens spontaneously, I do not have a plan of action, I just obey the impulse… everything happens intuitively.”
Q6:
Who has the deepest influence on your creation?
“It's always different … really depends on the theme. Usually I’m starting with a feeling of let’s say experience that I want to convey to the viewer.
For example, jewellery gives a tactile experience, makes art a part of the body. Architecture allows us to be inside the artwork (space becomes a sculpture). It’s a completely different impression and the same shape could really work differently because of the scale.”
Q7:
In the future, which fields and technologies do you want to continue to explore and try?
“I would say it two quite different directions:
First one is VR. But I prefer to call it post-physical reality. Virtual means that it does not exist, but current digital reality exists and has the same importance as physical reality. This new universe is created right now and it is very interesting to be a part of it.
Second is collectible design. I see a huge trend of merging art and everyday life. 100-200 years ago art was an icon - people could watch it in museums or cathedral. For our generation art dissolved in our routine. You can wear it, you can sit on art, cover your body with it… Now art is not something for high society, it’s something that makes our everyday life a little bit better. In this case collectible design is a closest thing to our everyday life and it’s great that a unique beautiful object could be a part of our everyday experience.”
