Leo Castañeda’s Web-Based Video Game

While the 2026 edition of the Whitney Biennial won’t open to the public until Sunday, anyone can get a sneak peek of one of the works in the show: Camoflux recalls the grotto.

The work is a video game created by Colombian artist Leo Castañeda that can be played online from any computer. For this piece, Castañeda hand-painted all the images over the course of ten years. Inspired by the Brazilian Amazon forest and the South Florida Everglades, Camoflux recalls the grotto Players are asked to cultivate a garden in this “pristine landscape.” Compared to more typical video games that involve a lot of action and progression, Camoflux recalls the grotto According to the description, players plant seeds in a “meditative, comfortable” rhythm, “collecting ‘liquid turbulence’ (water) and ‘electromagnetic intensity’ (sunlight) to nourish what the artist calls ‘cyber flora.'”

As curator Marcela Guerrero, co-curator with Drew Sawyer, tells Rob Report“We obviously like the unflinching attitude. Rather than the typical violent examples in the genre, this is a single-player game where you gather resources, and it’s about mutualism and working with the environment.”

It’s an interesting concept, made even more interesting by the title’s widespread accessibility online, but not unprecedented in video games. 2016 competition Stardew ValleyIn the game, players manage a farm and live in a small town, launching a suite of “comfort games” that encourage harmony with the environment and a slow pace.