Cezar Mocan (Romanian, b. 1993) creates real-time simulations and narrative generative systems, including animated video works of infinite duration, that recontextualize aspects of digital culture and investigate the power structures shaping society's relationship with technology. He is drawn to the built infrastructures that enable digital life and to how their presence in the natural landscape affects perception. Mocan lives and works in Lisbon.
Mocan started competitive programming at age ten in Romania and moved to the United States for university. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University in 2016 and an M.P.S. in New Media Art from New York University in 2021, later serving as a research resident there. A photography class taught by Victoria Sambunares, which introduced him to the new topographics movement, redirected his practice from code as problem-solving toward code as world-building. His thesis project Arcadia Inc., a real-time simulation depicting virtual beings that photograph scenic landscapes for a fictional stock-image company, won the Lumen Prize Student Award in 2021.
