“The era of personalization began on December 4th, 2009” declared author Eli Pariser in his book The Filter Bubble​. The date marks the introduction of the patented algorithmic filter Google established to track users online. The filter is designed to predict accurate recommendations in search results and advertisements in correspondence with monitored user preferences online. Tech companies such as Apple and Facebook now employ this personalization filter as third parties who employ codes to mine individual characteristics and subsequently calculate relevant content. The exhibition Third Party intends to examine these quantifiable personalized traits rendered in technological systems that purport a sense of individuality and personal growth. Although the individual is central to these transactions, the results one ultimately receives are often one-size-fits all categorizations, and frequently skewed by a Western male perspective. 

Each artwork featured in Third Party ​ serves to critique the male gaze evident within personalization filters. The selected artworks question the authority exercised to distinguish individuals through coding, while also investigating who has access to determine economic and informational value through the use of these codes. Not only do the artists employ the use of technology and an online environment to grapple with how one is seen through code, but the artists also directly involve the physical body. In doing so, the individual is reinstated as a priority within an intangible online system that impacts information, objects, and ideas. Third Party establishes a platform to confront the perpetuation of dominant ideologies through methods of algorithmic categorization.  CTRL + SHFT is a space for hybridization and other forms of experimentations. It contains both artist studios and a white cube for exhibitions. It is also an enterprise run entirely by women artists and curators, and they welcome members of the local and international art community to submit proposals for exhibitions and art exchanges. Funds for this exhibition generously provided by an Alternative Exposure grant from Southern Exposure.