(Lucy HG Solomon and Cesar Baio)
Cesar & Lois posits systems that integrate microbiological and human networks, with fungi that tweet and AI based on microbio-logic. The duo studies organic growth models with the objective of learning from overlapping patterns of human-based knowledge and nature’s growth algorithms. Cesar & Lois includes California-based artist Lucy HG Solomon, a professor of media design at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), and Brazilian artist and theorist, Cesar Baio, a professor of multimedia, media and communication at Campinas State University (UNICAMP). Their work challenges current ecological trajectories while criticizing the societal structures that have given rise to the nationalist politics of both Brazil and the United States. Cesar & Lois exhibit in traditional and nontraditional contexts, including Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Jardín Botánico de Ajuda in Lisbon. Recognized for bringing together microbiological and artificial intelligences in 2018, Cesar & Lois received Lumen Prize’s BCS Artificial Intelligence Award.