Cesar & Lois posit new systems that integrate natural and technological networks. In their various bodies of work, Cesar Baio (cesarbaio.net) subverts the algorithms of autonomous systems, while Lois (imaginaryscience.org) infuses art with nature’s data. Together they create fungal systems that tweet and posit nature-based economies. Cesar & Lois is comprised of a collective with a collective. Lois refers to The League of Imaginary Scientists, an artist group that creates digital intermediaries with nature, often as interactive object-based experiences. For “Degenerative Cultures,” Lois artists Lucy HG Solomon and Jeremy Schwartz collaborated with Brazilian artist/theorist Cesar Baio. Cesar Baio’s work invites viewers to renegotiate their interactions within systems, challenging the systems’ inherent logic models. Cesar & Lois nurture bhiobrid cultures, ranging from the fungal colonization of books to microbiological mappings, with the objective of learning from the overlapping patterns of human-based knowledge and the wisdom of nature’s growth algorithms. Works by Cesar & Lois have exhibited at Generative Art at the Ravenna Art Museum in Italy and the L.A.S.T. Festival at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford. Cesar & Lois acknowledge the contributions of biologist Scott Morgans, undergraduate researcher Kodie Gerritsen and Professor Sandra Doller's Literature & Writing Studies 325 Creative Writing Workshop at California State University San Marcos in the development of “Degenerative Cultures” for CODAME.
