Lauren McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance, and algorithmic living. She is a 2024–26 Just Tech Fellow and was the 2022–23 Stanford Human Centered AI Artist in Residence. She has received grants and residencies from Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Sundance, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Autodesk, and Ars Electronica, and her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work SOMEONE was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica and the Japan Media Arts Social Impact Award, and her work LAUREN was awarded the IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction. Lauren’s work has been exhibited internationally, at places such as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
Lauren is also the creator of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code, with over 5 million users. She expanded on this work in her role from 2015–21 on the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation, whose mission is to serve those who have historically not had access to the fields of technology, code, and art in learning software and visual literacy. Lauren is a Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. She holds an MFA from UCLA and a BS Computer Science and BS Art and Design from MIT.
LAUREN
In LAUREN, I become a human Alexa, installed in your home to watch over you and take control. The performance begins with custom smart devices — cameras, mics, locks, faucets, appliances — wired into your daily life. Anything Alexa can do I can do better. I can understand you as a human and anticipating your needs and desires. LAUREN exposes the tensions between intimacy and privacy, convenience and agency, and the hidden role of human labor in an automated future.
SOMEONE
SOMEONE imagines a human version of Amazon Alexa, a smart home intelligence for people in their own homes. For a two month period in 2019, four participants’ homes around the United States were installed with custom-designed smart devices, including cameras, microphones, lights, and other appliances. 205 Hudson Gallery in NYC housed a command center where visitors could peek into the four homes via laptops, watch over them, and remotely control their networked devices. Visitors would hear smart home occupants call out for “Someone”—prompting the visitors to step in as their home automation assistant and respond to their needs. This video installation presents documentation from the initial performance on four screens throughout the space.
LAUREN Portable
An installation that expands the LAUREN performance, functioning as both video installation and performance set. Artifacts of the performance are integrated with documentation and films, while a projection surface is activated by the performance with audience participation.
