My Wall Is Your Filter Bubble

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble was an Augmented Reality exhibition mapping the surface of the Peaks. It took 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 featured 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 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, created 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 questioned 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.

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My Wall Is Your Filter Bubble was a curatorial project commissioned and produced by Abandon Normal Devices and supported by British Council Mexico and Arts Council England. Curated by Doreen A. Ríos and Matthew Plummer-Fernandez, the project brought together six Mexican artists — Diego Ortega, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Leslie García, Martha Maya, Arcangelo Constantini and Gibrann Morgado — to develop augmented-reality works exploring online filter bubbles, borders and inequality.

The project was first presented at AND Festival in Castleton, Peak District, in 2017, before touring to Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City in 2018 and returning to the UK for Barnaby Festival in Macclesfield later that year. Across these presentations, the project combined exhibition, public programming and digital media to connect contemporary artistic practices in Mexico and the UK and to examine how networked technologies shape cultural, social and political experience.

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