US BORDER WALL
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Plato’s Cave and the U.S. Border Wall
Short Films from the Chihuahuan Desert
These short videos, filmed along the U.S.–Mexico border wall in March 2021, form part of Views from the Cave, David Deighton’s ongoing exploration of perception, division, and contemporary political reality through the lens of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Filming the Border Landscape
Observation Through a Child’s Perspective
The sequences were filmed by Deighton’s 9-year-old daughter while driving alongside the border wall. As the landscape passed by, she softly improvised an eerie melody—an intuitive response to the environment unfolding outside the vehicle.
The Chihuahuan Desert Ecosystem
The videos were captured within the Chihuahuan Desert, a landscape shaped by volcanic history and expansive open terrain.
Across both sides of the border, the environment remains visually continuous:
the same desert air,
the same geological forms,
the same horizon.
The wall interrupts that continuity.
The Border Wall as Contemporary Cave
Constructed Boundaries and Political Perception
Within the work, the border wall becomes a contemporary version of Plato’s cave boundary—an imposed division separating “inside” from “outside” despite the underlying sameness of the landscape itself.
Reality, Separation, and Illusion
The project questions how political systems construct narratives of difference and separation that can appear fixed or absolute despite their artificial nature.
Like the shadows in Plato’s cave, these divisions shape perception while obscuring deeper continuities.
Restricted Vision and Fragmented Understanding
Slits, Visibility, and Partial Access
The narrow openings within the wall allow only fragments of visibility and contact.
These restricted views echo the prisoners’ limited perception within Plato’s cave, where incomplete images stand in for full understanding.
Media, Systems, and Controlled Perception
The work reflects on how systems—political, social, and digital—can regulate what individuals see, understand, and imagine about others. These themes are further explored throughout Views from the Cave, Cognitive Bias, and Questions, where abstraction, projection, and experimental media examine the instability of perception and the influence of contemporary information environments.
Experimental Film and Philosophical Inquiry
Sound, Image, and Intuitive Awareness
The presence of Deighton’s daughter introduces another dimension to the work:
the act of observing reality while it is still being formed into understanding.
Her humming, filming, and intuitive engagement transform the sequence into an exploration of awareness itself.
Contemporary Art and Political Space
Rather than presenting fixed political conclusions, the videos function as philosophical and sensory investigations into borders, perception, and contemporary systems of meaning.
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