MacUser : The Impossible Project

David Cotterrell (www.cotterrell.com) has made his mark on the UK art scene since leaving college in the mid-1990s. Last year hc was among the Beck's Futures artists (Twenty/20, 8 March 2003, p38), showing Borrowed Time, an approaching steam train projected onto carbon dioxide. He's currently working on an installation for the redeveloped Gorbals tenements, in which five G4s (Macs are a recurring feature of Cotterrell's work) swap snippets of local dialect orchestrated by an Elizatype conversation generator. He's also tracked a briefcase around the Underground on CCTV, built machines that fire guns at each other, videoed drivers tailgating him on the motorway, and installed an erupting geyser in Saltley, Birmingham, without telling the locals what was going on. These and many other engaging projects are described in this retrospective, alongside essays from critics and curators that, like Cotterrell's work, are less pretentious and more intelligent than you expect.

• 128pp, ISBN 1-90103-3732, £16.95 paperback, Black Dog Publishing, www.bdpworld.com

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