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Lauren Lee McCarthy


Info︎

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

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

Autonomous works
  1. Autonomous
  2. Unlearning Language
  3. 24h HOST

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

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

creative capital logo
sundance institute logo
sundance offical selection
idfa doclab competition for digital storytelling
idfa official doclab selection


Surrogate


I will be your surrogate, carrying your baby while you monitor and control me with your phone. This desire began a multi-year journey and performance.








Live Performance Trailer

For more info on the Surrogate live performance, please see this link.


As Roe v. Wade is overturned and gene editing opens entirely new reproductive futures, this project asks: How much control should we have over a birthing person’s body, and over a life before it’s born? What does kin mean when rapidly developing reproductive technologies—including IVF, egg and sperm donation, embryo freezing, DNA testing, and gene editing—shift our relationships? What happens when our industrialized drive for control collides with the process of birth?



Background

The Surrogate project began with offering myself in a 40 week performance where I’d serve as a gestational surrogate for a parent who would have an app to monitor and control me 24/7. What I eat, what I do, what thoughts I meditate on, and more. The parent would have complete control over the body in which their baby is growing. What began as a speculative proposal became real when a close friend communicated her desire to enact this with me.

We followed our desire to perform this remote-control surrogacy as far as possible through an intense process working with doctors, psychologists, fertility specialists, surrogates, doulas, midwives, and geneticists. It involved designing the Surrogate app, searching sperm donor databases, completing psychological evaluations and health exams, freezing embryos, talking with family, and ongoing correspondence with each other. Upon reaching a difficult moment where I was prevented from being a surrogate by the medical board, I expanded the work into a series of short films, performances, and installations that tell the story of what happened.

This deeply personal work offers my body as physical, emotional, and conceptual surrogate for understanding reproduction and technology’s role in it. The act of becoming a remote control surrogate serves as a metaphor for the control we may soon hold through processes of genetic engineering, as well as the immediate infringement on our bodily autonomy enacted by the legislation of reproductive rights worldwide.

This project is in progress, consisting of a series films, sculptures, installations, publications, and a live performance. I am currently seeking partnerships to premiere, exhibit, and develop works in this series. For more info, please contact studio.laurenleemccarthy@gmail.com.

Surrogate App

The Surrogate iOS app consists of a parent and surrogate version. For the surrogate, the app syncs with an Apple Watch to automatically track data including heart rate, sleep, physical activity and step count, as well as self reported data including mood, meals, water intake and weight. A calendar feature allows the parent to view the surrogate's calendar and schedule activities, tasks, and meals. A snapshot feature enables the parent to request a current snapshot, allowing them to view the surrogate's immediate environment. A message feature enables and documents parent and surrogate conversation over the course of the pregnancy. A notes feature allows both to privately record their thoughts throughout the process. The visual design of the app references a digital notebook, departing from the slick tech aesthetic of current life tracking apps. While the app and performance began with a provocation of extreme control and surveillance, through the development process, the app became a tool for understanding an evolving and nuanced relationship.

Credits

Collaborator, Dorothy R. Santos
Cinematography, Gabriel Noguez
Intended Parents Film, Director, David Leonard
Surrogate App, Design, Stefanie Tam
Prosthetics, Design and Fabrication, Paul Esposito
Placenta, Design and Fabrication, Eunice Choi

A Creative Capital project, supported by Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab, and a Pioneer Works Tech Residency.

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