Artist Highlight: Leo & Lauren
Meet Leo Castañeda & Lauren Monzón, Bakehouse artists who independently and collaboratively explore the expansive intersections of art and technology.
Leo is a multimedia artist and video game designer whose work focuses on interdependent and posthuman interaction design, grounded in a melding of Latin-American Surrealist painting, virtual and augmented reality, wearables, video, and sculptural furniture.
Lauren is a film producer, video game producer, and cultural organizer who has spent the last ten years championing media art across South Florida, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Lauren’s work has screened across leading festivals and cultural institutions ranging from Sundance to Berlinale.
Together, they design the puzzles and game economy of "Levels & Bosses" — a video game series Leo started in 2009.
Image by Lauren Monzón.
Can you tell us about your artistic practice, both individually and in collaboration with one another?
LC: I’m a multimedia artist and video game designer exploring neo-primordial worlds where all landscapes, organisms, and technology share sentience. My artwork primarily takes form in episodic games and immersive installations that fuse painting, sculpture, textiles, virtual reality, and video art with gaming software to expand Latin American Surrealism for the Digital Age
LM: I am a film producer, video game producer, writer, and cultural organizer. I’ve spent the last ten years championing media art across South Florida, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As a producer, my work has been featured across festivals and institutions including Sundance, SXSW, AFI Fest, Rotterdam, Haus der Elektronischen Künste Basel, Berlinale, and Allied Media Conference.
LC + LM: Three years ago we began collaborating on video game puzzles for "Levels & Bosses" — a series Leo started in 2009. In "Levels & Bosses" players adventure through surreal environmental puzzles to adapt the aftermath of a cataclysmic explosion. Together we design the game economy – prototyping the resource distribution, acquisition, and expenditure system within game worlds.
Can each of you tell us about a personal artistic project or body of work that you are excited about? Is there a project/series that you're working on collaboratively that you're excited about?
LC: I can’t wait for the February 16 opening of TRANSFER Download: Sea Change, an immersive exhibition at PAMM reflecting on the acceleration of changes across climate, culture, and time. Curated by Kelani Nichole, the exhibition features one of my three-channel videos as well as work by fellow Bakehouse artist Fabiola Larios. I’m also excited to prototype a new transmedia installation series traveling between gaming conferences and cultural institutions with support from the YoungArts Technology Fellowship. Premiering at the 2024 Florida Supercon, this multimedia technology series aims to strengthen relationships between regional gaming, anime, student, and visual art communities.
Image by Vanessa Diaz.
LM: I’m excited to be working on a series of AI images visualizing cyborg care structures. From flamboyán microchips and polyrhythmic jacuzzis of collective belonging, to amphibious participatory budgeting carnivals — this series collaborates with AI to grow the vocabulary for interspecies interconnection. I’m also excited to be working on a talk for the 2024 American Alliance of Museums Conference on “Redefining Community Engagement through Media Arts.” I’ll be expanding upon my work with PAMMTV — Pérez Art Museum Miami’s streaming platform that brings video art from the Caribbean, Latin America, and African Diaspora to global audiences.
LC+LM: We’re excited to partner on a collaborative game creation workshop with Bakehouse. We’d love to follow the format of a game jam—an event where teams of artists and programmers join together to create a variety of short video games over a brief period of time.
Tell us about how you have developed as an artist since you began working at Bakehouse.
LC: Having a studio at Bakehouse has given me space to make larger multimedia installations and paintings. My last studio didn’t have air conditioning and the tech equipment would overheat, preventing me from working during the summer. Now I’m able to work year round and test large-scale installations of multimedia works, simultaneously catching threads between them.
LM: The impact of being in community with other interdisciplinary artists, and a dynamic staff including Cathy Leff, game designer Shawn Clybor, curator Laura Novoa, and art historian Krys Ortega, has been really inspiring. In addition to exchanging ideas, the community has catalyzed connections to opportunities within Bakehouse and its expanded network.
LC+LM: We are so grateful to be a part of the Bakehouse community!
Artist Biographies
Lauren Monzón is a film producer, video game producer, and a cultural organizer from Miami, FL. Lauren brings ten years of experience scaling support for artists, audience engagement, and operations at media organizations focused on South Florida, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As a producer, Lauren’s work has screened across leading festivals and cultural institutions including Sundance, SXSW, AFI Fest, Rotterdam, Haus der Elektronischen Künste Basel, BlackStar, Allied Media Conference, and Berlinale. For her work throughout digital storytelling and civic media, Lauren was named a 2023 Ford Foundation / Rockwood Leadership Institute JustFilms fellow and 2022 Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute Praxis Projects grantee. She currently serves as the PAMMTV Program Manager at Pérez Art Museum Miami, is a resident at Bakehouse Art Complex, and is a board member at Third Horizon Film Festival and Bookleggers Library.
Leo Castañeda (b. 1988, Colombia) is a multimedia artist video game designer exploring interdependent and posthuman interaction design. His artwork primarily takes form in episodic games and immersive installations that meld Latin-American Surrealist painting, virtual reality, augmented reality, wearables, video, and sculptural furniture. Castañeda is a 2023 Knight Arts + Technology Fellow, 2023 YoungArts Artist Technology Fellow, 2022 Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute Praxis Projects, and a 2022 Harpo Foundation grantee. He is 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. He is currently a resident at the Bakehouse Arts Complex in Miami.