Mutating between analog and digital, Leo Castañeda‘s work renders worlds where landscapes, technology, and entities all share sentience and interconnection. Through paintings, video, and sculpture, and more, the work traverses sci-fi gaming environments inspired by 18th-century Romantic painting, Latin American abstraction, and the liminal landscapes of Colombia and the Brazilian Amazon. Culminating in a video-game called Levels&Bosses, following The-Other on a quest to understand their power after a cataclysmic explosion, all expands into a greater body of work exploring post-human anatomies and interactions through a transmedia mythology. The first section of this video game project, displayed through a multimedia installation spanning video-games, AR/VR, sculpture, furniture design, and apparel, in conjunction with paintings and drawings, will launch at Locust Projects in Miami in Fall 2022. The installation will prototype the first “booth” type exhibit Castañeda has designed, merging tech conference aesthetics with art installation practices as the public launch of the video-game extends to a transmedia experience.
Image: Leo Castañeda, Entornos (Rendering), 2019-2021. Plan for booth exhibitions across tech conferences and art institutions. 20 x 20 x 10 ft. Courtesy of the artist.