Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

‘American Glitch’ (2020 – ongoing) is a look at the slip between fact and fiction and how this manifests in the U.S. landscape. In an era defined by screens, conspiracy theories, and the advent of the Metaverse, the notion that we are existing within a simulation has become increasingly popular. In the midst of the pandemic, the CIA released a report that acknowledged that they have been looking into this possibility for some time. This notion that we are living in a simulation appears online where images are posted as personal evidence of spotting a ‘glitch in real life’. This vernacular builds on ideas explored in movies like ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘The Matrix’. It is a vernacular that embodies a generation’s experiences of video games – the peripheries of these digital worlds begin to show their edges as players brush up against them. In other words, the notion of a glitch reflects a generation’s experience where the digital and physical worlds are merging.
The artist duo Orejarena & Stein spent over a year researching locations throughout the U.S. that fit into the framework of a glitch. They travelled the U.S.’s highways and byways on Google Earth, confirming these locations’ existence. They are viewing the internet as a mirror to our collective subconscious and taking the pulse of parafiction and its relationship to the U.S. This work will be presented alongside the following sentences: “One of these images has been manipulated. The artists will not say which one.”
Orejarena & Stein are from Colombia and the U.K. respectively, however they have lived in the U.S. for large portions of their lives and they’re interested in using the concept of a “glitch” in American society to explore the mythologies they both used to assimilate to their adopted home.
In an effort to dig right into the heart of these concerns, the duo often focus on the U.S. military and its substantial mark on the U.S. socio-political and physical landscape.

Andrea Orejarena (b. 1994, Colombia) & Caleb Stein (b. 1994, UK) are a multimedia artist duo currently based in the U.S. Their work has been exhibited internationally, and their work is available through Vin Gallery in HCMC, The Curator’s Room in Amsterdam, and Rose Gallery in LA. Orejarena & Stein have been nominated for a number of major photographic awards, including the Hariban/Benrido Award (chosen by Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator of Photography at Tate Modern), and the W. Eugene Smith Grant (jurors include Teju Cole), amongst others. Their work has been published in i-D Vice, Vogue Italia, The New York Times, The Guardian, It’s Nice That, WePresent, Hamburger Eyes, and Paper Journal Magazine, among many other places. They have given artist talks at the International Center of Photography (ICP), Christie’s Education, Sotheby’s Art Institute, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, University College London. Their work is in a number of public & private collections, including the Nguyen Art Foundation, the Frances Lehman Loeb Museum, and the Ann Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee Family Collection. A book of their work ‘Long Time No See’ is forthcoming through Jiazazhi Press in 2022, with texts by Đỗ Tường Linh and Forensic Architecture, designed in collaboration with Brian Paul Lamotte.