LAUREN LEE MCCARTHY: AUTO
AUTO is a new kind of driverless vehicle created in collaboration with the public through test rides. As a passenger, you don’t ride in AUTO; you become AUTO. Each ride begins with the question: Where are we going?
As the vehicle accelerates, new features are tested in a play between automation and control. The unexpected engine of the piece is collective singing, prompted karaoke-style through signage and sound. Learning the words they’re voicing only as they leave their lips, the passengers experience a kind of embodied automation that is both absurd and provocative. Do we feel the anxiety of moving at high speed toward the future with nobody in the driver’s seat? Or is there a thrill in collectively letting go of control?
AUTO is location-specific, adapting in each city through public collaboration. For the Dallas iteration, AUTO will take place inside a DART bus, with new features developed through exploring local perspectives on AI, automation, and city infrastructure.
About the Artist
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and internet culture. She creates performances inviting audiences to engage: to remote-control her dates, to be followed, to welcome her in as their human smart home, to attend a party hosted by artificial intelligence.
McCarthy is the creator of p5.js, an open-source creative coding platform that prioritizes inclusion and access, reaching millions of users worldwide. She is also a professor at UCLA Design Media Arts and co-director, with Casey Reas, of UCLA Social Software.
She has exhibited internationally at venues and festivals such as the Barbican Centre (London), HeK Basel, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center (Shanghai), Onassis Cultural Center New York, IDFA DocLab (Amsterdam), Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival (Tokyo).
Her work has been recognized by United States Artists, Sundance, Eyebeam, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Just Tech, and Creative Capital, and is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ZKM Karlsruhe, and Francisco Carolinum.
