Two sides of an Echo Chamber
A VR piece that questions the echo chambers that we make for ourselves for better or for worse regarding in social media that has become an important part of our lives. The beginning stages of this project was about our government in El Salvador, their different ways of repression and in this case, blocking everyone that speaks against the government. But we all create echo chambers in different media. We block different ways of thinking (literally blocking from social media) just interact with people that think like us or just not engaging with them. As seen in my theoretical research we want to hear our own opinions back to us and believe what we think is right and not all of us are open to hearing different opinions. In some cases it’s understandable why it happens because it’s exhausting when it comes to certain issues, hate speech, personal attacks and we need some sense of community but what eventually happens when these ideas cross in “real” life? and in the end what is reality?
With this theme I explored the terms that appeal to me about extended realities, the most general being “what is reality?” To make my project draft I used theoretical references as well as some art references to create piece that is a space where you see a frame with elements in it, it has bright colors and it’s framed on a white wall. There are two virtual reality headsets that you can put on, as a metaphor of seeing the world through different eyes. I chose to do this through VR glasses and not AR so the user has to put something on and looking through other eyes. These are also a part of the piece.
You pick one of the headsets and then you place yourself in front of the picture that has both 2D and 3D elements. These glasses track the space and make you see the frame in different colors and different sounds, both with an echo sounds. The frame is made out of floral lace that is a material used frequently in El Salvador, they use it as a cover for appliances, covers blenders, toilets, and in this case it’s a frame for the covering of information.
It’s a well known fact in El Salvador that you can get into trouble, or at least get immediately blocked when you speak against the current government. This government uses social media to give main changes, specially twitter. We’ve all come to not use our real names in Twitter and there are still people that have gotten in problem over a tweet. These are some images during the research of this echo chamber they create that everyone agrees with them.
