︎ A Society of the Filter?

September 21, 2022

Contemporary accounts of computational media often emphasise their role in the formatting of society, culture and perception in terms of bias and discrimination.  These are important angles to follow, but they also point to a wider condition that could be called the gestation of a society of the filter.

Phenomena as diverse as Instagram filters, facemasks, border controls, cognitive science models of 'free energy’, techniques of probability, gender and neural networks, amongst others, all involve iterative processes of filtering.  Filters may be variably static or dynamic and more or less programmatic. Patterns of interference between filters mean that they may also clash with or amplify each other.

Thermodynamics and information theory, amongst others, provide aspects of their basic equipment, but such a set of interwoven and mutually disturbing and stabilising structures are also fundamentally aesthetic.

This talk will look at some of the deeper and more superficial aspects of the society of the filter.

(Matthew Fuller)