IN MOTION

(image by sam brown / explodingdog)

I will be exhibiting Conversacube as part of the exhibition Provocative Objects: The Extradition at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

November 12, 2010, 6-10pm

Patricia Doran Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
600 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115

http://provocativeobjects.com

Come try out Conversacube!

Now in its seventh year, the consistently sold-out event will host an evening of live music and video projections in the BP Grand Entrance and an exclusive preview of William Eggleston: Democratic Camera-Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 along with after-hours access to Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1925, Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, and Eye for the Sensual: Selections from the Resnick Collection.

Saturday, October 30, 8:30 pm-12:30 a.m.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
5905 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, California 90036

http://www.lacma.org/membership/MuseCalendar.aspx

I am pleased to announce the opening of I AM HERE NOW, the fall UCLA Design | Media Arts exhibition, featuring the work of the second year MFA students. The opening is Thursday, October 14, 5-8pm at the New Wight Gallery on UCLA campus. The exhibition is also open daily October 15-20, 10am-4pm. There is more info and a preview of the works here, and you can find more about my own piece for this show at conversacube.com.

I will be presenting Conversacube, a new work of mine, as part of the Conflux Festival today from 4-6pm at Yaffa Cafe (97 St. Mark’s Pl). Come check it out!

From the festival website:

“Conflux, the art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space, presents interactive art and technology events over the weekend of October 08-10, 2010 in the East Village. Participants will transform the neighborhood into a street-based laboratory with art installations, interactive performances, games, guided expeditions and more.

As a leading venue for cutting-edge work by public-space artists, technologists, scholars and practitioners of contemporary psychogeography (the study of the geographic environment’s effects on our emotions and behavior), Conflux provides an open framework for the examination, celebration and (re)construction of everyday city life.”

photo by diego

I’m teaching a Parent-Child Processing Workshop at Machine Project this month with Kate Hollenbach, come check it out and bring your kiddies!

a conversacube for every kitchen table, bedroom, and bar around the world! never experience another uncomfortable moment!

My plan for the next few weeks is two work on several tracks in parallel. The first will be developing some documentation for the table – mainly fictional scenario videos that hopefully allow viewers to engage with the table even if they can’t physically try it. The videos will depict various situations in which the table might be used and how it could affect interactions. In these scenarios I hope to draw out some of the questions and contradictions that formed the inspiration for creating this table.

At the same time, I plan to move on to a different piece that iterates on some of the same ideas I started to explore with the table. The piece is tentatively named ‘Conversacube’ and it will be a small box meant to form the centerpiece of any conversation situation. The box would sit in the middle of all conversants, with one face facing each person. On the top will be some kind of dial or input method for setting the current situation (ex: “first date”, “at a funeral”, “dinner with the in-laws”). Each outward face of the box will have a small screen and a microphone embedded just inside. As the conversation progresses, each person will be personally prompted with directions or lines to keep the conversation running smoothly. The microphones will record audio levels (and perhaps tone?) and the prompts will be modified accordingly, to ensure conversation that is balanced by all participants.

The intent is to make something that on one hand, is suggestive of an actual tool that could use technology to potentially improve interactions, and on the other hand, critical of our dependence on technology and choreographed social routines, hinting at a dystopic future where we sacrifice all autonomy to avoid having to face what we don’t already understand. The questions that I’m trying to draw out, as with the table, deal with which of these directions we’re heading. Or is it both? Are we consciously aware of the future we’re building with all of our technological innovation and “progress”?

conversacube sketches

The modes of exploration with this piece will be in two veins, similar to the table. First, I want to create boxes and test them in the real world (coffee shops, bars, homes) and collect feedback from test users. Second, I want to create a series of short advertisements, that explain the product and suggest possible use scenarios and solicit more test users.

While having others try my table out, the feedback that I generally get is that it falls in some sort of uncomfortable place between a useful design object and an obvious art piece. I’m very interested in this space, but I think sometimes in seeking it out I end up with work that is too subtle for many people to connect with or understand.

Here are the main questions and things I was thinking about in developing this piece…

I am very interested in the potential of technology to affect our interactions. It happens constantly as new technologies are created, but there seems to be a tendency to move as quickly as possible toward faster, smaller, more, without taking time to reflect on the effects of our innovations. The table was intended both as a critique and an exploration.

I specifically wanted to make the feedback that people give non-automatic. For this reason, people turn pedals with their feet rather than using biofeedback or some kind of ambient analysis of the conversation. I wanted that moment of consciousness when a person becomes aware of himself evaluating his experience, quantifies it, and decides whether or not to act. In this moment – what are the factors considered to rate one’s experience? What matters and what does not? What does it mean to anonymously provide feedback? How does it differ from what is communicated through verbal or body language? What are the things we feel uncomfortable saying, and why?

In our current networked social culture, we are constantly rating – videos, thoughts, activities, actions. “Like”, “dislike”, “3/5 stars”, “retweet”, “friended” are extremely stripped down ways we can instantly communicate, but what depth of relationships, ideas, emotions lay behind these mechanisms? Does our current culture provide a platform for sustaining and developing this depth of human interaction, or are we growing more isolated and distant in our constant connectivity? This table explores these questions by reducing all conversation to the movement of a lever and the modulation of light.

One person that saw my table commented, ‘but if I had this in my living room I think I would go crazy.’ What is it about this scenario that seems to explicitly wrong? How different is it from the ways we interact with each other regularly? Sometimes no words need to be said for an expectation or a judgment to be clear.

In a more optimistic direction, what if technology really could positively affect our interactions? Is there a possibility for feedback to be leveraged to help people toward new, more enriching experiences? Could a system like this potentially accelerate new relationships, pushing past barriers of unfamiliarity and obligatory small talk?

These are a few of the things on my mind while making this, but the table is also intended for each person to read it in their own way. In viewing in virtually and having no opportunity to actually experience the object, it perhaps requires a bit more imagination and engagement on the part of the viewer. What could be done to facilitate this? Scenario videos? Actual use trials with documentation?

While thinking about the documentation and presentation of this table, I’d like to move on to a number of other experiments. More to come on that soon!

I will be showing Tools for Improved Social Interacting in the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery in Los Angeles, July 25-29.

“The SIGGRAPH 2010 juried art gallery showcases work by artists who physically engage technology in their creative process. Beyond the sense of sight, TouchPoint brings together creative works that investigate, celebrate, and critique the polysensory nature of human experience in a digitally enhanced environment. It investigates the permeable membrane of the digital interface, where we use an array of tools to materialize and visualize future artifacts of creative expression. The work integrates human haptic connections in computer-based artwork, involving the “viewer” and/or the artist through a unique physical interface.”

A preview of the exhibit is here.

I’m spending the summer at Oblong Industries working on the spatial operating environment they’ve created called g-speak. Here’s John Underkoffler explaining more about it at TED.

This month I will be participating in the TINT Arts Lab residency program. From the TINT Arts website:

Based on a framework of constructive critique and knowledgeable support, participating artists are invited to explore their work within the boundaries of media art. While we appreciate the final results of the artists endeavours, we also value an exposure of the conceptional and developmental phase. We consider that the documentation of these usually opaque processes allows ongoing meaningful feedback and is an important part of artistic practice. Through unveiling the modes and theories involved we aim to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange between practitioners, thereby adding to the continuous exploration of media arts.

You can follow along on my blog, feedback is very welcome!

I will be having an exhibition of my work this month, come check it out!

Thursday, May 20, 2010
5:00pm – 8:00pm

UCLA Broad Art Center (rm 1250)
240 Charles E. Young Dr.
Los Angeles, CA

“What minimal model of the actor is needed if we are to wind him up, stick him in amongst his fellows, and have an orderly traffic of behavior emerge? …Not, then, men and their moments. Rather moments and their men.”
-Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual

I have a few videos included in What If? 60x60x60, an audio video project curated by Gene Gort and Ken Steen, which will be showing as part of the New Media Curious Experimental Moving Images Festival at Axiom on Thursday, April 29 at 7:30p.

The project uses 60 video clips and 60 sound compositions that are 60 seconds in duration each. During the event, audience members select one number each from a video and audio designated list. These selections will determine the evening’s program of 60 works, resulting in a 60 minute screening. What If? 60×60×60 investigates the serendipitous relationship of sound and moving image in terms of coincidence, shifting context and potential meanings that result. Check out the online version of the project at http://www.nmnmne.org/what_if.php.

I’m participating this week in a social media art roundtable organized by artist/designer/writer An Xiao who’s writing up a piece for Hyperallergic on the topic. Appropriately, it’s via facebook, so follow along here!

Tomorrow evening, I will be concluding a month of internet scripted life with a final performance co-starring my classmates. Anyone is welcome to attend, details are included in the attached invite.

The script for the performance is open for editing here:
http://www.lauren-mccarthy.com/script

I will print out copies of it for everyone, so you are free to script yourself or others in attendance, anonymously or not. Lines, stage directions, costumes, props, setting… Audience members are welcome to become part of the performance as well! For those far away or otherwise unable to attend, the performance will be recorded and shown online. The loose theme is a review of my project, but it can also be anything we want.

Some questions I am thinking about…

Can I share some of my experience of the past month with you in this way? Will you feel something similar to what I felt? Or will it be something completely different?
What alternatives to a traditional review are there? Does it have to be so serious? Could it be just fun and silly? Would it be interesting still?
What happens if this fails? Am I / are we ok with that? How would we decide whether this group performance was a failure or a success? And the project as a whole?
What elements inhibit and facilitate participation? Which parts are most / least enjoyable? Which parts feel uncomfortable / comfortable? Why?
How much should be scripted vs left open to improvisation? How to find the balance between structure and spontaneity?
What are your questions?
What is learned by doing this?

My script project will be ended this tuesday, after one month of scripted life, with a final review performance at 6:30p in the Broad shop studio space. All are invited to come watch, light refreshments will be provided.

The Performing Navigations: (Re)Mapping the Museum workshop that I have been designing in collaboration with Sara Wookey and Rennie Tang will be taking place on February 27 at 10am at the Hammer Museum.

I will be exhibiting the Happiness Hat in D|MA2 (Device | Machine Arts X Design | Media Arts) as part of the Gadget OK! symposium. Feb 18 – March 4, Art | Sci center Gallery, CnSI (Opening: 5:15pm, Feb 19).

Review of exhibit and symposium in Wired.

Right now I’m engaged in a performance piece where my life is collaboratively scripted, one day at a time, by anyone on the internet. Each day, anyone is welcome to add dialogue, setting, costume, and stage directions to my script for tomorrow. At midnight, the script is closed for editing and it becomes the basis for the performance of my life the following day.

www.lauren-mccarthy.com/script

I am currently seeking performers that would be interested in having walk-on roles in my life. The time commitment and performing responsibilities are variable and open to negotiation. Especially seeking anyone interested in filling the roles of stunt double, understudy, antagonist, or any other role you might imagine. Please contact me if interested!

Busy with a few projects…

The first is a visualization project I’m working on with Casper. The goal is to collect and visualize what we perceive as being beautiful, in an attempt to make people more aware of their environment and the way they perceive it, and to better understand our experience of beauty.

The second is a performance experiment in which I allow my life to be collaboratively scripted, one day at a time over an extended period. Each day, a script for tomorrow complete with dialogue, setting, costume, and stage directions is created through a publicly accessible and editable wiki. At midnight, the script is closed for editing and it becomes the basis for my performance of my life the following day. I maintain an online journal recording the scripts and some video and photo documentation of each daily performance, along with my reflections on the day and the project as it evolves. This outcome of this project is pretty undetermined, and I’m not entirely sure why I’m doing it but I felt like I had to try. I do know I am interested in the relationship between life and performance, in the blending of fiction and reality, in the dynamics of control, in the idea of collaboratively determining the future, in the infinite possible actions that I often forget while choosing a limited repeated subset of them to actually engage in each day, and in the potential transformations or outcomes that could come out of this just by me or someone else deciding that they will.

Check out www.lauren-mccarthy.com/script for more info and to participate.