American Glitch (2020–2024) explores the intersection of documentary and fictional elements, examining the connection between mythological
narratives and disinformation tactics within the context of our networked present.
Over the course of four years, Orejarena & Stein have built an unusual archive, amassing over 2,000 photographs and AI-generated images, many
of which circulate online within the context of humor as a strategy of cultural resistance, conspiracy theories and the popcultural imaginary of
simulation.
This artistic archive reveals a repertoire of image types, codes, patterns, and motifs that form a dynamic typology within the ever-expanding visual
world of disinformation. Orejarena & Stein have transformed this examination of images—some of which playfully question our relationship to reality,
while others take a more paranoid approach—into their own photographic concept, loosely inspired by an atlas of conspiracy-theory locations and
spaces that contain particularly fraught construction across the US landscape.
By analyzing the metadata of these image files, such as locations tagged on social media and other contextual information, the artists were able to
trace the origins of the archived images. This analysis resulted in the first cartography of conspiracy theory locations in the USA, which serves as the
starting point for the exhibition »Tactics & Mythologies.« Following this map, the artists embarked on a journey through the US to document it as a
»simulation.«
Their symmetrically composed photographs, taken frontally with a digital Hasselblad medium-format camera, align with the pictorial tradition of
canonical conceptual photographers like Ed Ruscha, as well as documentary-driven projects that conduct a photographic topography of the US. In a
social present shaped by viral fictional narratives, the project navigates the space between documentation and fiction, physical and virtual realms,
and particularly their hybrid intersections that characterize the American landscape—where simulated environments and manifest fictions converge.
The large-format color photographs are presented for the first time in spatial dialogue with an image archive sculpture specifically developed for the
exhibition. The collected images are projected as temporary, choreographed and layered constellations onto transparent cubes, flowing past the
expansive landscapes and staged architectures in Orejarena & Stein‘s photographs like swarms of viral hallucinations. The archive sculpture reflects
Orejarena & Stein‘s ongoing exploration of visual practices online and their dynamic archives as a collective subconscious.
The exhibition and event series »Viral Hallucinations« (2024-2026) explores
the expanding ecosystem of photographically-interpreted images that serve
as viral carriers of imaginary worlds and fictional narratives, focusing on
the media and technological conditions that drive the dynamics of a »new
conspiracyism«.
»Viral Hallucinations« presents a series of exhibitions, lectures, workshops,
conversations and performances at the Temporary House of Photography,
focusing on conceptual documentary projects and emerging voices in
international photography and its experimental fringes.
In addition to the classic exhibition program, the Temporary House of
Photography in Hamburg, serves as a space for the examination of current
socio-technical phenomena and digital image cultures in our algorithmically
ordered and increasingly post-factual world.
