LAUREN by Lauren Lee McCarthy

In LAUREN, Lauren Lee McCarthy—creator of p5.js—embodies a human version of Amazon Alexa, serving as a smart home intelligence for individuals within their own residences. This week-long performance involved the installation of an entire custom-designed smarthome, including networked devices, cameras, microphones, switches, door locks and faucets. The artist remotely oversaw and controlled all aspects of the home 24/7, aiming to surpass AI by understanding and anticipating the person’s needs on a human level. The resulting relationship occupies an ambiguous space between human-machine and human-human interactions. LAUREN explores our fundamental, basic relationships with machines and whether humans can possibly know other humans as well as machines by intuition despite a lack of data. The work asks questions about this relationship in the context of our centuries-long examination of how technology in art shapes our very humanity. Beyond these deeper questions, LAUREN examines tensions between intimacy and privacy, convenience and agency, and the future role of human labor in automation.