Joan Leandre was born in 1968 in Sabadell, Spain. His work is situated somewhere between hacking, media-archeology and art.
Taking imagery directly from computer games, he rearranges it and creates immersive landscapes and interiors by manipulating the game engines from within, resulting in surreal, posthuman scenarios.
The modifcation of computer games – those powerful mediators of our digital age - has played a crucial role for many new media artists such as JODI or Cory Arcangel, in defining their individual artistic language.
In Joan Leandre's case, the reversal of our natural laws, the disturbance of normality, comes into play, leaving the narrative relics disrupted. In his work retroyou(RC) (1999-2001) the parameters for gravity are transformed so that cars no longer drive on the streets, but instead float freely through a seemingly zero gravity world.
In his series In the Name of Kernel! Leandre creates post-apocalyptic scenarios where flight simulators crash (Song of the Iron Bird, 2006-2008) and all signs of human beings are erased from the landscape of an ego-shooter-game (Lonely Record Sessions, 2009).
In the name of the 'kernel' - the kernel of every operating system where processor and data configuration is kept - Leandre attacks the illusory effect of computer games and their user interfaces. Far from mere formal playfullness, he disrupts the logical structure of the game thus subverting the ideological machinery and reinterpreting the illusory effect to his own liking.
Since 1993 Joan Leandre is a member of the OVNI Archives (Observatory of Non Identified Video). He calls himself an artistic media interpreter. His works have been exhibited in numerous international museums and festivals, amongst them the Centre George Pompidou, Paris, El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, the ZKM, Karlsruhe, the Whitney Biennale and Ars Electronica.