Truthsoft

'The Lies That Bill Gates Told Me: Exploring the Digital Divide,' an exhibition organized by Jesus Macarena-Avila, asserts a 'spanglish space' as its conceptual point of entry. Featuring work by Chicago-based Latino/a collective POLVO, 'Lies' explores hybridized culture and identity through a mesh of media art works that combine sound, video, digital imagery and commercial products to positively tangled ends. In 'Glam Pov,' Manuel Sanchez critiques hip-hop's romanticization of poverty by appropriating logos from welfare food products and transferring them onto t-shirts. In their collaborative multi-media installation, Amanda Gutierrez, Monica Herrera, and Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa demonstrate how translation can alter meaning by refracting a single sound through tens of different voices. Also including works by Yesica Barrera, Miguel Cortez and Hugo Michel Hernandez, 'Lies' speaks to a digital divide that cannot be bridged simply by access to technology. Rather, the ability to deploy technologies to various creative and critical ends is the strategy proposed here. 'Lies' opens at Victoria University's new gallery for computer mediated art, VUSpace, today. -- Lauren Cornell