A portrait of a Latin American man with clear glasses and dark wavy hair, sitting in front of a patterned grayscale backdrop. He wears a woven shirt with an olive collar and a geometric design.

Leo Castañeda (b. 1988, Colombia) is a video game director and multimedia artist exploring interdependent and posthuman interaction design. Castañeda’s artwork primarily takes form in episodic games and immersive installations that meld Latin-American Surrealist painting, Virtual Reality sculpting, augmented reality, textiles, video, and furniture. He is a 2022 Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute Praxis Projects participant and a 2022 Harpo Foundation grantee, as well as a former resident of the Bronx Museum AIM Program, SOMA Mexico City, Oolite Arts, and Khoj International Artists Association in New Delhi, India. He has exhibited at Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel; Espacio ArtNexus Bogotá; Children’s Museum of Manhattan; Digital Museum of Digital Art, Indiegrits; South Florida Cultural Consortium; Locust Projects, Miami; Frost Museum of Science; and Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Colombia. His work has been featured across Rhizome, ArtNexus, Killscreen, El Pais, El Nuevo Herald, Spike Art Magazine, and Vice. In 2022 Castañeda launched Miami’s first fine-art video game studio, Otro Inventario.

Website
leonardocastaneda.com

Instagram
@leocastaneda__
@levelsandbosses

Photo by Vanessa Diaz

Selected Work

An installation view of a gallery show in a large room with tall ceilings: in the background is a wall-sized projection of a video game, depicting a surreal, abstracted landscape, and in the foreground is a temporary wall outfitted with an amorphous texture and television monitors featuring two playable game demos. Nearby are biomorphic textured carpets and angular interactive gaming chairs.
Leo Castañeda with Otro Inventario, Herramientas (Levels and Bosses), 2022. Multimedia gaming installation, dimensions variable. Installation view at Locust Projects. Photo by Zach Balber.

A digital rendering of a rounded interior space with an undulating floor with various garments, tools, and large, otherworldly architectural forms lining the perimeter.
Leo Castañeda, Herramientas (Levels and Bosses), 2022. VR, dimensions variable. Installation view at Locust Projects in Miami.

A digital rendering of amorphous material, resembling an explosion, over a craggily landscape, rendered in grays and muted greens and browns.
Leo Castañeda, Levels and Bosses (still), 2021. Unreal Engine and video, dimensions variable.