My Wall is Your Filter Bubble

Curated by Doreen A. Ríos and Matthew Plummer-Fernandez featuring the artwork of Diego Ortega, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Leslie García, Martha Maya, Arcangelo Constantini & Gibrann Morgado.

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble is an Augmented Reality exhibition mapping the surface of the Peaks. It will take a critical look at the borders and silos we are confronted with in our online lives.

The political climate that many of us find ourselves has us searching for answers and opinions, and yet, despite the ease with which we can reach out to each other, the echo chamber effect magnifies news and opinions similar to our own, stopping other views and voices from getting in.

Expanding upon these echo chambers, and how they relate to broader issues such as accessibility and inequality, My Wall is Your Filter Bubble features thought-provoking commissions by Mexican Artists in the form of augmented-reality experiences. Reflecting on their own personal experiences of bubbles and borders local to them – cultural, social and political – each of the six artists have created a ‘site-specific’ work to be transported virtually to the Peaks. These works include stories of border-town blindspots, the impact of televised Japanese culture, and architecture funded through political corruption.

In reflection of these virtual barricades, Curators Doreen A. Ríos and Matthew Plummer-Fernandez, will create a geo-fence that will operate as an intangible border around a particular part of Castleton. This virtual geographic boundary will act as an online perimeter, meaning that the exhibition is only accessible to visitors online when in the physical vicinity.

Exploring the tensions, affordances and paradoxes of digital cultures, each of the works question how social media platforms have provided people with a public voice, at the same time that online filters, firewalls and algorithms continue to restrict many from being heard.

Outside view - Castleton, U.K.

©Chris Foster

Inside view - Castleton, U.K.

* The exhibition presented at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, proposed to create second layer of reality inside which My Wall is Your Filter Bubble inhabits the same space as TRANSMUTACIÓN – Alquimia del espacio by Jaime Lobato, where this second layer expands digitally on top of the current physical exhibition. This conversation connects with the mixed realities in which we unfold daily and looks to blur the antagonic dualisms that have proven not only to be obsolete but also that stop critical thinking from developing on how we experience the digital and how it touches our physical world.

Inside view - Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico

After the exhibition presented at Abandon Normal Devices Festival, we carried out the symposium: My Wall is your Filter Bubble - Mexico, which took place at Laboratorio Arte Alameda from February 28th to March 4th 2018. The activities that composed this symposium were:

With the participation of Arcángelo Constantini, Fernando Monreal, Tania Aedo, Doreen A. Ríos, María Torres, Irene Soria, Lourdes Barrera, Jacobo Nájera, Matthew Plummer-Fernández, Gibrann Morgado, Martha Maya, Diego Ortega y Gabrielle Jenks.

Symposium: My Wall is Your Filter Bubble - Mexico

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble was commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices Festival with funding from British Council, México.

Text x AND festival