"Items in Varied Renders" at IRL Institute in Miami is an exploration of a space where mythological worlds from my video game, Levels & Bosses, transform into textures and forms of a future domestic existence. In the virtual space, figures merge into machines, furniture, and body extensions in order to enter their own virtual spaces. The distinction between human and object is blurred by both the figures' lack of interaction with their external environment, as well as the ubiquitous unifying monochromatic textures pulled from my paintings, photos and drawings, creating a space that oscillates between charge of history and meaning, and erosion of histories.
Prototyping virtual interactions, here the person with the VR Wearable sees a maquette of the scene that originated the painting as if viewing a small architectural model. The head as camera swoops over vast distances to observe a showroom of sentient sculptural machines for viewing virtual reality interacting with post-human beings.
IRL is pleased to present Items in Varied Renders, an exhibition of paintings, drawings, video, interactive sculpture and virtual reality by Leo Castaneda. The exhibition plays with ideas of mixed reality- the merging of real and virtual worlds. Forms entering and exiting various mediums create a constant feedback loop; images and textures seen in virtual simulations may originate from physical pieces, and vice versa.
The show’s name borrows from the vocabulary of video games, where the word 'item' describes objects of value, tools or even characters with artificial intelligence. In video games, collections of items are assembled in various manners: from menus to showrooms reminiscent of furniture stores. Items in Varied Renders functions as a physical showroom in and of itself, while the virtual environment also functions in part as a showroom of more semi-functional sculptures used for viewing virtual reality environments.
In the virtual space, figures merge into machines, furniture, and body extensions in order to enter their own virtual spaces. The distinction between human and object is blurred by both the figures' lack of interaction with their external environment, as well as the ubiquitous unifying monochromatic textures pulled from Castaneda's paintings, photos and drawings. Personal photos from visiting family in the Amazon region sit next to appropriated images from diverse sources on the internet and screengrabs of instances in the creation of artworks, various origins and histories blend together as they become abstract textures and patterns. The resulting aesthetic reads modernist alien sci-fi mixed with a gray-scale psychedelia. It is a space somewhere between the past, present and speculative future that merges interior design with videogame arcades, while also inevitably highlighting the design of the exhibition itself.
IRL is an artist run gallery founded by Eddie Negron and Marla Rosen