Tube Gallery | Friday, Feb. 6 - Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Curated by Audra Verona Lambert
“The commodity is… materialized illusion” — Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
We live in the shadow of AI’s ascendancy, with the rapid-fire pace of search engine algorithms increasing exponentially by the day. In Cost Basis, curated by Audra Verona Lambert, visitors encounter an installation that poses a critical question: in a period of unprecedented technological ascendancy, how can values be ascribed in a manner calculable by the human mind?
Visitors to the exhibit navigate a shadowy matrix: an inscrutable environment as murky as the matrices dictating social media algorithms and high-volume stock trades. Continuing forward, one navigates a semi-permeable, wraith-like maze where scattered light and cryptic sound and movement collide. The space appears nebulous, but unfolds according to a fixed pathway that demands action but restricts choice. A central feature within the exhibition space calls into question our system of values, forcing visitors to reflect on how we can remain unbiased in a world that is continually scaffolded around our individual interests by forces that financially benefit from subtle technological manipulations. A sound installation permeating the space turns stock trading data taken during the February–March period of the 2008 recession into a musical score, sung by Vagioni, reversing the algorithmic pipeline from that of creator content dispersed via murky metrics to metrics being captured and translated into creative output. The accompanying theater component to this exhibition plays with the tension between creativity and metrics, asking how we can subvert data in late-stage capitalism into artistic output.
Cost Basis at its core critiques the volatility of contemporary wealth. The installation’s multisensory environment evokes the ways in which market forces rapidly shift the value of commodities and capital: the same products that are sold via social media marketing metrics ruled by the all-powerful FYP. Through the concept of cost basis—typically applied to financial instruments but also relevant to life insurance policies, which can be borrowed against by policyholders—the exhibit underscores the unsettling reality that technologies are progressively being utilized to assess the value of human lives relative to market forces without input from actual people. The aleatory methodology of these financial systems recalls the ancient Greek satirical comedy Plutus by Aristophanes, in which volatile wealth redistribution incites the ire of both gods and the elite. Today, the Olympian gods of Aristophanes’ play are replaced by corporate boards and politicians who preserve cycles of inequality under the guise of merit and innovation: access to insider knowledge becomes the modern divine right. How can ethical considerations exist in a world where decisions are being made at speeds beyond the threshold of human competency?
About the Curator:
Audra Verona Lambert is the Curator of the University of Southern Indiana’s New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art in New Harmony, IN. Previously based in Louisiana and New York, she has curated exhibits at the American Scandinavian Society, Fountain House Gallery, Yeshiva University Museum, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and more. She was Director, Amos Eno Gallery from 2020–22, and has worked on projects for Art in Odd Places (NY), More Art (NY), Pro Arts Jersey City (NJ), and more. She co-founded the community-driven initiative alt_break art fair, dedicated to elevating mission-driven organizations (2016–20), and is curating an exhibition for Carillon Gallery, Tarrant County College art gallery in March 2026. Lambert holds an MA in Art History & Visual Culture (Lindenwood University, MO) and a BA in Art History (Saint Peter’s University, NJ), with study abroad at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata City, Japan.
About the Artist:
Pavlina Vagioni is a Greek-born interdisciplinary artist based in Houston, TX, whose work spans sculpture, painting, sound, and digital art. She has exhibited at notable venues across the US and Europe, including the Byzantine Museum, Hellenic American Union, Kappatos Gallery (Athens), TANK Space, Lawndale Art Center (Houston), Carillon Gallery (Fort Worth), and Opening Gallery (New York). Vagioni completed a residency at the School of Visual Arts and created a public art project at Houston’s ION Building. Her work is recognized internationally and held in multiple private and public collections, including the MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki, Greece).
