Image courtesy of Cici Wu
Image of books and bookshelves

Workshop


Under the Influence Book Club: The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

July 31, 2019
AAA in A, '09-'21

43 Remsen St. Brooklyn, NY

How do artists seek knowledge, expand their perspectives, and engage with the contemporary world? To explore this question the AAA-A team have selected one artist-chosen title from the Under the Influence Library to read over the course of the month, culminating in an informal roundtable conversation with other readers to examine the text alongside examples from the artist’s body of work.

For our July book club, we selected The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web is Changing What We Read and How We Think by Eli Pariser, suggested for the Under the Influence Library by artist Miao Ying. Miao said of her selection: “I’d like to recommend the book The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. It reminds me of another book that I read about a decade ago, The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. It is ironic that in just ten years, the world is more walled than ever by personalization and the social media algorithms. It is also very interesting to read in comparison of the internet and tech situation in China. Filter bubble is almost like a “self-censorship” that you create unconsciously.”

This book club was part of a series of programs happening throughout Summer 2019 in conjunction with the Under the Influence: A Traveling Library of Books that Inspire Artists installation. More information about this project and the rest of the program series can be found here.