Luciano Greco - 1971 - Lo schiavo psichico

The anthropomorphic figure, entirely made from a dense tangle of metal wire, is depicted while looking at a smartphone.
The title, "The Psychic Slave", finds its most compelling explanation in this technological object.
The man depicted is seated on a rough-hewn log—a symbol of a nature or physical reality now downgraded to a mere inert support—and he is completely absorbed by the screen of his cellphone.
The choice of metal wire becomes here a powerful visual metaphor for the "net".
Those wires that make up his body seem almost to extend from the electronic device, which, rather than connecting him to the world, traps him in a self-referential loop.
The posture, with his head bowed and his torso folded over the screen, expresses a closing off to the outside.
It is the archetype of the contemporary man: physically present in one space, but mentally and emotionally elsewhere, confined to a virtual dimension.
The sculpture perfectly captures that modern paradox in which the maximum technological connectivity coincides with the maximum social and interior isolation.
Luciano Greco (1971) is a sculptor, painter, and craftsman, formed in the workshops of the great masters of Taranto between the 1980s and 1990s. After graduating from the Liceo Artistico, he earned his degree at the Academy of Fine Arts of Lecce, a period during which he actively frequented numerous artistic circles. His research focuses on experimenting with reclaimed materials—such as waste, scraps, and industrial skid—through which he creates figurative sculptures.
At the center of his production is the current human condition, where the boundaries between pathology and normality are blurred. Today his creations are part of numerous private collections across Europe.