My Wall Is Your Filter Bubble Exhibition (Mexico)

After its success at AND Festival 2017, the augmented reality exhibition My Wall is Your Filter Bubble toured to Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico in 2018.

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 created a ‘site-specific’ work to be transported virtually to the Peaks, that will now be translated into the Mexican landscape. 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 another geo-fence similar to the intangible border they created around Castleton. This virtual geographic boundary acted as an online perimeter, meaning that the exhibition was 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.

Curated by Doreen A. Ríos and Matthew Plummer-Fernandez

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble includes the following works:

Cultural Glitch – Martha Maya
View a 360-degree video filmed in Tijuana, a Mexican city situated alongside the US border. The video transports visitors to the scenes where stories of border crossing and crime take place, as well as unknown spots that demonstrate hope for a better future. The wall hasn’t been able to divide two cultures and Tijuana has become a cultural melting pot of improbable alliances – a cultural glitch.

Bakteria – Archangelo Constantini
Mexico is known to be host to local bacteria’s that have little effect on Mexicans but make outsiders ill with stomach ache. The locals jokingly call this the “Revenge of Moctezuma”. Illustrative depictions of these foreign bodies are virtually rendered across the landscape, sniffing out their new-found territory and invading the horizon.

Mexit – Gibrann Morgado
Emanating from the landscape are floating cement ‘CEMEX’ castles, which grow larger and more visible across the skyline. CEMEX is the company that have put itself forward for supplying the material needed to construct the Mexican/US border wall. Depicting a nightmarish virtual supply and transformation of the material, Mexit is a reflection of the infrastructures and industries behind politically charged walls.

Mixed(F) – Leslie Garcia
With virtual billboards displaying positive and negative tweets that highlight the gender bias and inequality prevalent in the use of social media in Mexico, Mixed(F)uses Twitter to search for examples of both harassment and struggles over gender equality. Springing up as you move around the experience, the billboards represent the ongoing opposition and fervent battle between feminist and misogynistic attitudes.

Epic Battle – Diego Ortega
The Mexican socio-economic divide fosters a noteworthy disparity in the cartoons and advertising that Mexicans grow up with. Exposed to either cheaper Japanese imports such as Manga, or American cartoons. Ortega’s floating figures are adorned with the brand logos that advertise to these separate audiences.

Peña Fiel Fountain – Alfredo Salazar-Caro
Gain insight into the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto’s personal palace, bought with public money. Since being elected in 2012, Peña Nieto has been tied to corruption, crime, violence, and economic problems, and has become one of the least approved presidents in Mexican history. Exaggerated versions of Peña’s architectural spoils virtually appear; anti-monuments that mock the self-interest and vanity of this much unloved politician.

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble is supported by British Council, Mexico.

My Wall is Your Filter Bubble was originally part of AND Festival 2017 under the programme strand Dis-Location.