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Lauren Lee McCarthy


Info︎

Projects
  1. You Can Say "Reset the Room"
  2. SOMEONE
  3. LAUREN
  4. Waking Agents
  5. Follower
  6. The Changing Room
  7. 24h HOST
  8. Later Date
  9. I heard TALKING IS DANGEROUS
  10. Sleepover
  11. I.A. Suzie
  12. Social Turkers
  13. Vibe Check
  14. Autoreply
  15. Beyond the Breakdown
  16. Welcomer
  17. Friend Crawl
  18. M/WITM
  19. pplkpr
  20. The Changing Room: Part One
  21. Social Soul
  22. us+
  23. How We Act Together
  24. Tools for Improved Social Interacting

Teaching/Pedagogy
  1. p5.js
  2. Smarter Home
  3. Network Media
  4. Performing User
  5. Senior Capstone
  6. Interactivity
  7. Conversation & Computation
  8. Social Hacking
  9. Critical APIs
  10. Computational Media
  11. Introduction to Programming for the Visual Arts (Free online course)

Archive
  1. You Can Say
  2. Inactive Account Manager
  3. Facebook Mood Manipulator
  4. LOVEINT
  5. SCRIPT
  6. Conversacube
  7. Relatable
  8. Relation Station
  9. Patterned by Nature
  10. ReConsitution 2012
  11. CSIS Data Chandelier
  12. Energy of the Nation

Mark

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.

Press: The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Engadget


closeup of one of the white laptops with it's lamp on, headphones next to it, and a "hello someone" all caps with an arrow next to the text pointing to the right on the screen.
four people sitting on the chairs using their corresponding computers wearing their headphones.screenshot of the hello someone interface, showing the title on the left side of the screen with subtext saing" please assist by sharing your intelligence" and bellow there are seven types of switches, two are on and the rest are off, below there are six light categories, one of which is on and is red. next to the interface there is footage taking up most of the screen, showing a person in the kitchen with a pink blouse viewing the camera, while there are two smaller footage on the top right showing the rest of their space.screenshot of the hello someone interface, showing the title on the left side of the screen with subtext saing" please assist by sharing your intelligence" and below there are eight types of switches, two are on and the rest are off, below there are seven light categories, five of which are on, three are white, one is blue and the las tone is green. next to the interface there is footage taking up most of the screen, showing two people talking in the kitchen, while there are three smaller footage on the top right showing the rest of their space.






But the visitors in the gallery did not always respond as expected. They subverted requests, engaged the occupants in conversation, and asked questions back.

SOMEONE is ultimately about presence. The inhabitants have a constant awareness of SOMEONE’s presence, and gallery visitors become aware of their own presence, too. I’m trying to highlight this trade we are making for these surveillance smart devices. My work tries to find human metaphors for understanding systems we weren’t built to have an intuition for. We willingly give access to all our data and live camera feeds to huge corporations. But how does knowing a single human sits on the other side of the system shift our perception? Suddenly we become aware of what is at stake and what is possible.

All of the participants are negotiating relationships and poking at the system. The point of this project is not to impose a point of view, but to give viewers a space to form their own. We desire intimacy while wanting privacy, we crave efficiency while dealing with the human scale of time. Some moments are awkward and confusing, others are hopeful and warm. Together, they have a conversation. What boundaries might we hold when it comes to letting AI into our data, our decision making, and our most private spaces?

Credits
Software and hardware development by Harvey Moon and Josh Billions. Interface development by Lauren Lee McCarthy. Furniture design in collaboration with and fabrication by Lela Barclay de Tolly. Smart home participant collaborators include Valeria Haedo, Adelle Lin, Amanda McDonald Crowley, and Ksenya Samarskaya. SOMEONE was created with support from a Google Focused Research Award and the Harvestworks New Works Residency. It was first exhibited at 205 Hudson Gallery as part of Refiguring the Future. Screenshots by Lauren Lee McCarthy, installation photos by Stan Narten and Otto Saxinger.

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