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Lauren Lee McCarthy


Info︎

LAUREN works
  1. LAUREN
  2. SOMEONE
  3. LAUREN Portable
  4. Exhibition: You Can Say
  5. The Changing Room
  6. Waking Agents
  7. I.A. Suzie

Saliva works
  1. Exhibition: Bodily Autonomy (Saliva Bar)
  2. Saliva Retreat
  3. Saliva
  4. Testing

Surrogate works
  1. Surrogate
  2. Exhibition: Data Relations
  3. Exhibition: Reproduction Otherwise
  4. Surrogate Performance
  5. Womb Walk

Autonomous works
  1. Voice In My Head
  2. Driverless
  3. Unlearning Language
  4. 24h HOST
  5. Seeing Voices

Muted works
  1. Exhibition: I Heard Talking Is Dangerous
  2. Muted
  3. I heard TALKING IS DANGEROUS
  4. Good Night
  5. Good Morning
  6. What do you want me to say?
  7. Sleepover
  8. Later Date
  9. Appreciate You

Other recent works
  1. Follower
  2. Social Turkers
  3. Vibe Check
  4. I’m glad you asked
  5. Autoreply
  6. pplkpr
  7. us+

Teaching & pedagogy
  1. p5.js
  2. Open Source Software Toolkits for the Arts Report
  3. Web We Want (W3C TPAC)
  4. Smarter Home
  5. Network Media
  6. Performing User
  7. Senior Capstone
  8. Disability, Design, and the Web
  9. Interactivity
  10. Conversation & Computation
  11. Social Hacking
  12. Critical APIs
  13. Computational Media
  14. Introduction to Programming for the Visual Arts (Free online course)

Archive
  1. Beyond the Breakdown
  2. How We Act Together
  3. Wake Words
  4. Friend Crawl
  5. Welcomer
  6. M/WITM
  7. The Changing Room: Brisbane
  8. Social Soul
  9. You Can Say
  10. Tools for Improved Social Interacting
  11. Inactive Account Manager
  12. Facebook Mood Manipulator
  13. LOVEINT
  14. SCRIPT

Mark

24h HOST

* A cocktail party generated by a machine hosted by a human.

Created in collaboration with Casper Schipper.

What will be the role of humans in a future AI driven world? As algorithms begin to optimize nearly every interaction and aspect of our lives, the last remaining role for people may be performing the emotional labor to act as human interface to AI. The 24h HOST performance is a small party that lasts for 24 hours, driven by software that automates the event, embodied in human HOST. The AI analyzes the guests present in real-time and delivers directions via earpiece to the host: what to say, what to serve, who to introduce to whom. Every 5 minutes, one guest departs and a new one arrives. Over the course of 24 hours, the HOST becomes increasingly depleted, but the software system drives her to continue, as the guests endlessly cycle through…

screenshot of the homepage of 24 hour host. The header is "24 hour host", calligraphy text below that, and "join the party" in the bottom. The background is light pink.
image of the outside of the 24 hour host exhibition showing the a wall where you can see the what's inside with a blurry look. the colors of the room are magenta with purple.
image of two people wearing white in the room, the person on the left is wearing a coned shape silver hat while sitting down and looking at someone outside the frame while smiling. the person on the right is looking at their phone, they are sitting on the arm holder of the chair. the lights are magenta with purple.
image inse the 24 hour host room. In the background you can see a bartender behind the bar and a person with a dress ordering something. on the foreground you can see a person sitting on a couch holding an object to their eyes and viewing through it.
an image of three people having a conversation while sitting down.
image of electronics, phone size some silver and others black, some have circular holes in them.a black phone cover with a circular object attached to it.a black rectangular care with a metallic mesh on top

image of the entrance to the room for 24 hour host. you can see the lauren standing viewing at the room.
image of a room with a white couch, white table, two chairs, another white table, a lamp, two plants, a book shelf, a landscape photograph and a rug.
photograph of a bartender from 24 hour host
documentation image of the 24 hour host room, there are two people sitting down having a conversation on the right side of the room and two people talking on the couch on the left side of the room. the bartender is in the foreground and lauren is walking in the middle of the room.
documentation image of two men talking two each other while wearing coned silver hats and sitting on chairs.
close up of a shelf, there's a fork on the left side a candle in the middle and a white mask on the right, the shelf below is blurred.
image of two people talking while wearing coned silver hats and sitting on the couch. one is wearing all red and holding a martini cup and the other is wearing light blue jeans, a gray long sleeve shirt while holding a martini and looking away.
close up of a person with crossed legs sitting down and holding a toothpick with an olive.
documentation image of 24 hour host of five people having a conversation, all wearing silver coned hats, three are sitting on a white couch, and the other two are sitting in individual chairs.
documentation image of three people wearing silver coned hats talking while standing up.
documentation image of three people wearing silver coned hats talking while standing up. the person in the middle is lauren and the other two are shaking hands.
documentation image of two people talking in the background while sitting in individual chairs, and in the blurred foreground lauren hunching down towards someone.
a receipt coming from the machine with a martini glass illustration on the top and text below.
image of empty used martini glasses on a grid.


Writing
 How kind of you, but I think I have everything under control – ADJACENT

Prop design in collaboration with and fabrication by Lela Barclay de Tolly. Second performance at Digilogue Space, Zorlu PSM, Istanbul, performed by Leman S. Darıcıoğlu with Performistanbul.

This project was commission by MU for Dutch Design Week, and was developed as part of the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Residency Program with the World Building Institute and Pigeon Hole Productions and was supported by Turner Broadcasting and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Photos by Boudewijn Bollmann.