Eli Cortiñas, born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, in 1979, is a visual artist of Cuban descent who resides and works in Berlin. Her artistic practice investigates cinematic memory through the analysis and reassembly of pre-existing footage, combining it with her film, video, and sound recordings. Cortiñas collects, organizes, and classifies diverse materials, reworking and reimagining found films, YouTube videos, advertisements, and animation, interrupting and restructuring narrative flows.
Her video essays and installations integrate found images with documentary strategies. The use of complex montages, humor, and irony serves as a tool for dissent, critical reflection, and resistance. For Cortiñas, cinema constitutes a collective memory, merging historical images with contemporary perspectives. Her work problematizes the relationship between authenticity and representation in identity discourses, deconstructing power asymmetries and processes of othering in Western audiovisual production.
The artist teaches Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and was previously a guest professor at the Art Academy Kassel and the Art Academy Mainz. Between 2019 and 2022, she shared a chair for Spatial Concepts with Candice Breitz at the University of Art in Braunschweig. Cortiñas has received various grants and residencies, including support from Fundación Botín, Kunstfonds, Villa Massimo, the Berlin Senate, Villa Sträuli, Goethe Institute, and Kölnischer Kunstverein, among others.
Her works have been exhibited in institutions such as Museum Ludwig, Kunsthalle Budapest, CAC Vilnius, SCHIRN Kunsthalle, SAVVY Contemporary, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Museum Marta Herford, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderna, Centre Georges Pompidou, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and MUSAC. She has also participated in the Riga Biennial, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Mardin Biennial, and festivals such as Oberhausen, Vila do Conde, and Nashville.
Eli Cortiñas’ work establishes connections with digital colonialism, particularly by questioning the production and circulation of images and the power asymmetries in representation. The artist analyzes the bias in stock image production, highlighting the difficulty of finding diverse and non-stereotypical representations of marginalized groups. While one might assume a diverse world, the available visual archives often reinforce homogenized standards.
Another key aspect of Cortiñas’ work is her critique of the illusion of narrative democratization. She argues that despite the seeming accessibility of image creation and circulation in the digital era, a few dominant entities still control and capitalize on resistance discourses for commercial or ideological purposes. Her practice also highlights the intersection of technology and power systems, reflecting on how digital infrastructure relies on extractivist, capitalist, and colonialist processes.
The artist questions visual hierarchies and subverts dominant narratives by appropriating and reconstructing pre-existing images. The project “The Machine Monologs” examines the relationship between technology and humanity, addressing biases embedded in artificial intelligence and the consequences of digital surveillance. Cortiñas speculates on machine sentience, questioning whether they can exhibit greater humanity than humans. Her approach dialogues with postcolonial thought, particularly the legacy of Frantz Fanon, bringing geopolitical and ecological implications into focus.
The artist also explores the feminization of technology, as seen in “Smart Wives,” a project that critically examines virtual assistants and AI systems with female voices, reinforcing gender stereotypes. In this way, her work highlights how digital colonialism manifests not only in image production but also in the social configurations of technology.
In summary, Eli Cortiñas’ work stands out for its critical rigor and ability to dismantle established narrative structures. Her practice transcends formal analysis, engaging in an in-depth discussion on contemporary image production and consumption, and exploring the implications of digital colonialism in terms of representation and power.