Over ten years ago, I was intrigued by the objects of Peter Terezakis which combined minimalist forms with winking and blinking LED lights. Knowing the artist, and witnessing his artistic evolution, it is clear that his artwork embodies some of the most impressive aspects of his character. His enthusiasm and inventiveness, a balance of inner discipline (as evidenced by a black belt in Karate) and his technological wizardry have all been placed at the service of what can only be called a spiritual search through the practice of art. That his patriarchal ancestry includes a Greek Orthodox priest should inform us that his search has long and deep roots.

I came to know Peter shortly before the death of his father, easily Peter's most influential mentor. The Senior Terezakis was an independent soul who made difficult decisions in life about the priesthood which he loved. And so Peter works through a passionate dialectic in his work--between faith and doubt, the scientific mastery of materiality and the threatening dubiousness of materialism as an answer in itself. From the beginning, Peter's works have involved "interactivity." Using biofeedback and robotic monitoring devices, from temperature sensitivity gauges to sound and motion detectors, his sculptures have been "armed" with the uncanny ability to sense and respond to the viewer. Whether it was jewelry-sized or filled a room, I have watched the fascination and delight of both adults and children as Terezakis's sculptures respond to them with some flash of recognition.

His "All the Names of God" experiment was created to activate an apocalyptic Doomsday scenario possible only through today's web- linked downloadable mindscape. To me, this is Terezakis's most satisfying and threatening piece. Aesthetically, a flame speaks each name, pointing back to the ancient minds who first saw and heard the voices and names of God as they gathered around their fires, hoping and seeking for solace against the threat of nature, and their own hardwired doomsday of biological destiny as wormfood. "All the Names of God" brings us to a consideration of our own mortality and hints at our enmeshment in a Cosmic machine.

At the risk of over-extending the "Greek"-ness of Peter's art, I would point back to the cradle of Western civilization and culture in the teachings and example of that great soul, Socrates. This pre-eminent Greek philosopher was known to be in communion with what he called his "daimon", an inner voice that he wrestled with and relied on as his fountain of wisdom.

Likewise, each artist is inspired by a force beyond themselves, a daimon of creativity if you will, that they must wrestle into form. I have suggested that Peter Terezakis's machine/sculptures embody the struggles of faith and doubt, which may be the character of his particular "daimon." And like the two streams of wisdom that flowed from Socrates' great students, Plato, the mystic idealist, and Aristotle, a philosophical scientist focused on the "real" material world, Peter Terezakis's soulfully technological art exemplifies the struggles between the ideal and the real, the still living questions at the heart of our post-modern civilization.

Alex Grey, Brooklyn NY 1995