Steven Cottingham: Single Chains

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Steven Cottingham, "Dodge Charger," 2020

computer illustration

The exhibition titled “Single chains” by artist Steven Cottingham is in touch with this era of deep fakes and fake news where images lose their assumption of verisimilitude. But just because they are not ‘true’ does not mean they aren’t also ‘real’. 

Cottingham suggests that constructed images, like advertisements, shape our reality. These media forms may not truly represent our diverse, individual experiences of reality, and yet they situate us into our daily roles as workers, citizens, and subjects.

By using special software, Cottingham has illustrated doubtful but nonetheless realistic (that is, believable) events. A car burns on a soundstage, using both staged commercial production techniques and spontaneous protest strategies. Heat radiates out from the electronics, giving a physical element to the virtual. 

Cottingham hopes for visitors to “grasp the slippage between signs and their signifiers in this disorienting media landscape where nothing seems to add up” 

Steven Cottingham is an artist and curator based in Vancouver. Cottingham holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited across Canada, the US and Cuba, as well as several locations in Europe.