Artist Lauren McCarthy Will Be Your Home's Brain

So today we have Lauren McCarthy. She is an artist based in LA. Could you give us a quick background?

Sure. Um, I'm an artist based in LA. I'm an assistant professor here at UCLA Design Media Arts, but my art is basically thinking about what are the systems we use to be a person and interact with other people. Will technology save all of our problems or cause many more?

Do you have an answer?

Yes. So, at the footer of your website, on your about page, you wrote, "I make art about what confuses me." Is that still true? Is your website old?

Oh, yeah. I know it's definitely true. Um, the main thing that confuses me is just people—all of them. So I make art about people and about, you know, the sort of expectations we have of each other, or the rituals and the patterns and the strange things we do when we're together or alone.

Hmm. And so I guess to give people some context, can you just reference one of your projects that is about people?

Sure! Um, so maybe to give it an example, I did a project called Social Triggers a few years ago, and I was trying to see if I could fix my non-existent dating life. So I made this system where I went on a series of blind dates with people that I met on the Internet, and then I discreetly streamed the video of the date to the web. I then paid people through a service called Amazon Mechanical Turk small amounts of money to watch the date and try and give me instructions for what to say or do to see if they might be better at kind of coaching me or directing me through this date.

And was that successful for you?

Um, yeah, to some extent. Maybe less successful than I had hoped, but also less successful than I had feared. Yeah, the thing that it did really was make— I guess one thing I'm always trying to do, without getting too philosophical, is understand like what are these limits we put on ourselves. So for me to get these instructions, oh yeah, so they would come as like text messages, and I have to do them or say them immediately. Just having to do these things and not being totally in control felt really uncomfortable at first, but then also like started to become really natural.

But the thing it made me realize is just like I could say or do things that I felt like, oh, that's not me or that's totally weird of me to do. And then like the date would not, you know, act like it was such a strange thing to say or do, and so it—like the sky didn't fall. I realized what a narrow box I normally hold my idea of myself in, and so what that project was really successful in doing was just getting me to like kind of loosen up my identity, I guess, in some way.

Yeah, they had no idea that this was going on while you were doing it.

They didn't, and that was part—you know, I didn't—I started out with these where I would tell them at the beginning of the date because, you know, it wasn't supposed to be this secret thing. But the problem was that the whole date would be just talking about the project and about the issues around it and surveillance and art, which was great, but it didn't feel like a first date. Then it was just them quizzing me about my art practice.

So I switched to like telling them at the end or after the fact just to try and get a feeling that like this is this thing we all do—we don't talk about it while we're doing it.

So was it just really eye-opening for you to give up control and let other people like basically do the date for you in a way that like made you more comfortable with other people over time? Or was it just that individual experience that was just different?

Yeah, I know. I think it did have some lasting effect where I sort of thought—with a loose knot from that project—it was like almost by giving up control I started to feel more freedom in some way. But the other weird effect was that like immediately after the project, I had gotten really used to the system that like for the first few days I felt really like unsure about how to make a decision like, you know, like can I kiss you? Or like if you want to come home, like do you want to have a second date? I was like, I don't know how to determine those things anymore.

Oh my god! It's like have you wanted to jump on the other side and let control other people?

Yeah, I don't know. I have less of maybe my controlling of other people as just by setting up these situations and asking if they'll participate.

I was wondering with all these projects if you're just attracting more people like you to run the date for you.

It has the problem—I get at least socially enough people as my turkeys.

Huh, maybe. I don't know. It is interesting that with a lot of these projects, those different roles—I talked to someone, and they immediately are like, oh, I want to be this on the side of it, or I want to be on the other side of it, or I want to do neither of those things. For every person, it's really clear in their head, but different—so crazy.

And was there a moment before all this, like the art projects got started, the programming got started, that you recognized that you were having difficulty interacting with people?

Oh yeah, definitely. Incidentally, like throughout your—I mean, did you study art in college?

Yeah, I studied computer science and art, and I—maybe this is the source of all my problems—but I went to MIT where, like I feel like the one thing I didn't learn was any social skills. I never felt that like inadequate in college. It was like immediately afterwards, I was like, oh wow, all these people know how to like interact with each other. Weird! When was I supposed to get that?

So I was like, well, what can I do? I can like kind of hack things, I guess. I can build software. Maybe that would help.

But it seems like you're in this interesting place in between, right? Because you also had that—your JavaScript thing, which was p5.js—which is like about opening up art and technology as a whole, right? So obviously, like larger issues you're trying to tackle as well or is that just because you found that like you—at MIT—so you were given the aptitude to get into programming and like make art? And you felt that people couldn't do it?

Um, yeah. No, I think it's—so I have this feeling where I don't— I think part of my social anxiety or awkwardness comes from just a feeling of like I just don't know how to fit into a lot of situations.

And so another place where there's a big problem with people fitting in or feeling welcome is in tech in general. I think that was what really got me interested in like working as p5.js project. It was—and not just tech; like open source is even worse, like in terms of like the gender breakdown or minorities that are involved. And so I was just trying to see, like what would it look like if the number one goal of this project was to build a space where people feel welcome and use that as a starting point—not like, oh, we built this cool tool, and then, oh crap, like can we get some more, you know, different people in here after the fact?

And yeah, so that's—you know, I like JavaScript, I like building this tool, but that is the core for me—is like can we make a space where people just feel comfortable being there even if they don't know yet how to code or they don't know how they fit in or they don't know the other people?

It's not working. Like, what about this product at this particular—like I mean it's an entire framework, right? For building—what about it is attractive?

Most people, I think part of it is the design. So, if we have that core value of like we want to support diversity in different points of view from the get-go, part of that goes into design decisions about the tool itself—like trying to make the language itself understandable, the functions in the library—trying like putting a really heavy emphasis on documentation, so it's not this barrier where you have to figure it out. It's like someone has actually helped want you to learn.

And then also, there's actually doing things behind the scenes of taking some trade-off the code—like under the hood—to make it easier for people that are not like expert developers to still be contributors to that codebase, so adding a lot more commenting in there and just doing things in slightly less sort of obscure ways.

That's really cool! I never thought about that—like just opening up exactly how you comment to make it better for people to jump in and like be open-source contributors. I always thought about it as much more like consumer-facing, like I guess processing.

So has this netted like different kinds of projects?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, the user base is so much broader, and we really try to highlight that, so that's the other piece of it—is like actively doing events or curating homepage sketches or galleries or doing outreach and like working with specific groups and being like, well, what does it mean, you know, in your context? What are the useful examples? Or like, do maybe we need to translate this also into Spanish? And then what are the relevant, like examples or concepts they're doing? These just like change the metaphors we're using to teach instead of like assuming that you use the same object that we're talking about.

So, yeah, the projects are just—they reflect, you know, a wider range of people and like different ideas.

And are they like chiefly art projects or what?

Mainly, but I think it's being used in a lot of other contexts too—like visualization stuff. I see it like in news and like blog post kind of things as a showing data or making some point.

Yeah, I think wider than just art.

Okay, sure.

So one thing that I did want to talk to you about was the Facebook mood manipulator. Are you still actively working on that? Is that existing in the world still?

Um, it exists. I don't think it works so well. Facebook kind of changes their underlying infrastructure very regularly, so that does explain how it worked in the past.

So it actually—I made it in response to this news in like 2014 or something like that where it was like, oh, Facebook is like, did this study about mood manipulation where they were showing people either positive or more negative content, and then showing that this would cause a person themselves to make more positive or negative posts, with the conclusion that they can actually influence your mood based on what they show you in your feed.

And the outcry was all about the procedure and like, you didn't get proper permission! Like, I can't believe Facebook is experimenting on us! That was a whole different conversation. But I was more interested in like this question of like, they can like control our moods, like I don't have time to be mad about them experimenting right now. Like, what about this issue?

So things like Mood Manipulator was this Facebook add-on you could get that basically would give you this interface that you could—it had a few metrics—like positive, negative—but also like optimistic, pessimistic, I think, or open or private—something like that—I forget exactly another.

And then how was it actually interactive?

Yeah, so you get to select how much of these things you want to feel in a given day when you wake up, and then it filters your posts accordingly. So it was using a method called Linguistic Inquiry Word Count, or LIWC, that was actually the same method that the Facebook mood manipulation study used. It's pretty straightforward. It's basically just looking at the words in a post and trying to tag them with different qualifiers, you know, this is a positive word, or this is the pronoun, and then all of these different, you know, results like openness or hopefulness are based on what percentage of the words are in this category or that category.

So you just like added up like an equation.

Have you thought about doing a version to like post-2016 election?

Yeah, the other side of Facebook?

Yeah, I actually think they—I've seen some things like that, like to see other echo chambers. I wonder—I wonder what it would be—the appropriate add-on now because I think now people are so used to that idea like, of course there are many doing my mood, of course, you know? They're filtering out certain things or targeting me.

It also seems difficult given like how much like app and like mobile browser traffic they have right now. I guess—I mean, I don't know how much it's changed since 2014, but I imagine it still.

Which is super difficult.

And so what have you done? Many other extensions?

So one that comes to mind is this extension for Google Hangouts.

Yes, I made it with Kyle McDonald. It was called Us+, which is kind of a play on Google+, and the idea is that you install it in your hangout and it would measure what—it would do speech-to-text and like measure the words that you're saying and analyze them and then it would also analyze your facial expression, and it would try to kind of optimize your conversation and then give like feedback individually.

So like I might be—it might notice that I'm like being much more negative or pessimistic than my conversation partner, and so it showed me an image like, “Stop being such a downer,” or something like that.

Or my favorite feature was if you were talking a lot more than the other person, it would just auto-mute you. You’ve been on mute for talking too much until there was more of a balance.

You can be—it's so surprising that you're like the one building these tools when you seem to have like a very high EQ for other people. Maybe you don't feel that way though.

Ah, yeah. I'm not sure what the answer is. I feel like I am very sensitive to other people, but then I just like—my output, I'm always feel like lost, like I'm like, okay, this person—like I'm supposed to say something reassuring or like, you know, make the situation comfortable right now—like, but what and what do I say?

I think more people have that feeling than you think.

Yeah, because there was also that box project you guys made, right? What was that one called? Like, it would tell someone what to do on their date at a certain point in time or the Conversa Cube?

Yeah, these ones.

Oh yeah, is that what you think about?

I didn’t.

Yeah, it was green!

Yeah, the special version we made for our wedding.

So their silver to match the color theme.

Yeah, this was a project I did a while ago. It’s called Person Cube. It's just like a centerpiece for conversation, and it would kind of sit in the middle of your table and detect like who was talking and then try to give you two single one or two-word cues of what to do or actually what to say or talk about. Was it parsing the conversation or was it just like throwing random stuff out?

Um, yeah, it was listening to the conversation, and I can't go into the specifics of that one. I mean, a lot of these projects are sort of working with people’s desire to buy into things, and not in a superficial light like you give someone a product and you tell them it does something, and they really start to—they kind of want to believe it.

Or they—so like with the Us+ project, I was talking to this reporter, and we were doing an interview over Us+, and she was, you know, towards the end, and she's kind of like, “Well, you know, this is great, but like is this really working if you feel sort of random?” Like how smart is this thing?

And I was about to explain how, like, yeah, you know, speech-to-text is not that great, and the analysis we're using is actually just be for longer bits of text or whatever. But at that moment, it was like, “Stop being so doubtful,” or something, and she was like, “Oh my god! I know very radical right now, thank you!”

That's like—we remember these moments where it works for us, and we forget more the times when it just doesn’t work.

Are the physical objects more effective or less effective than, like, the plug into the websites?

I think they're more effective in the sense that like—it's amazing what a physical object can do to just get people like an excuse. And so that was part of the thinking of the Conversa Cube because it was like, you know, people are really just starting to get smartphones. I’ve heard it to be more widespread, and I was like, what about this thing that we're all carrying these objects around? Like, that's interesting!

What is that?

So, yeah, I think having an object, people are instantly like ready to just sort of act differently or, like, put aside some of their normal patterns and see what this thing does in the space.

Um, the apps and extensions are nice though because it means I don't have to like get objects to people. It's like anyone can download and reach is so much wider. And what I really like about it is this question of like, okay, so you saw the little video trailer and you have maybe you feel upset or excited or confused. But like, then you could just click download, and do you—and if you do, then like, how do you use this app and why? And like, you really have a choice. It's not just something you see in like news about. It's like a real choice in front of you.

Hmm. Because I was wondering like how often you get pulled towards a commercial interest with these projects because I think like we were talking before we started recording about people asking you to like make a startup or misunderstanding the project as a startup. Do you ever feel like—I mean the cube is a perfect example—like the desire to do like a giant Kickstarter for something like that?

Yeah, sometimes I did this—I also had this like happiness hat that would detect if you were smiling and then like to tap you on the back of the head until you started the smiling again to train your brain, and that one—like people were really like writing me asking to buy them.

I guess for me, it's just like how I know how much since I've seen friends' Kickstarters. I know how much time goes into just like figuring out manufacturing and production and everything, and that's not where I want to spend my time particularly. So I think like the software gets to that point of mass distribution.

So yeah, so one thing that I am curious about is like how people do consume and even buy digital art or digital media in general. I know that like you, you make, you know, websites and apps and stuff and not everything's physical, so it's like kind of hard to sell, but where do you see that going as far as like people consuming and purchasing it?

Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think anyone has found the ideal model yet. I know a few artists that have found something that works for them—like they have a specific contract they use for selling a website or transferring ownership of something—but there's not like one universal way of dealing with it in the way that there is with like, you know, selling a painting or something like that or selling a sculpture.

And there's also the trickiness of just like, if I sell you a digital file, what is there—anything wrong with like just making a copy and giving it to someone else? Like, is there some difference between the copy of a file or the original? Or if I sell you a, you know, an app and the app no longer works with your current version of your phone, is that still an interesting right?

Are you like now the project manager for number image?

Right! So people have different ways around this. Sometimes there's contracts for how long you maintain something. But yeah, so for me, I don't—the only context in which I've kind of sold an app before—well, usually it's freaks—I’m just interested in people trying it and that's not worry I’m trying to make money.

But one time, I made a—this app that a lot of people—it got to like the front page of Reddit, and so that all these people started downloading it, and I hadn't really built the server for that. I was expecting like, you know, maybe a thousand people at most, and so I need people to just like stop telling he's with us.

So I just like added a price, and then, like, a few hours later I felt like, oh, I feel bad! Like I just want to be free, but in that time I made like a few thousand dollars and—oh, that works!

Yeah! I'll give refund everyone.

Did you keep it?

No, I did—you know, bought it!

Yeah, doing that one window!

And I wasn't free—like window.

Yeah, that's really grand of like the exact inversion of almost every other company.

Yeah, it's interesting because I was wondering about like why there aren't more digital artists. I know there are obviously a lot of them, but like more prolific, more like really well-known, and was wondering is that like that issue around selling and buying stuff is actually a part of it? Because like, you know, if you're a painter, if you're the rare combination of someone—a painter who also has some like business savvy and can sell stuff, like, you can survive—whereas like, someone like you like—you teach at UCLA, which is awesome, but like that's not solely your art, right? And yeah, I'm just curious like what innovative models artists are trying to like push on right now to try and create that stuff or if you think that like maybe everyone becomes artists and this is just like the side thing for lots of people?

Yeah, it's—I think part of the difficulty comes out of just like the market around buying selling art is very conservative because you're agreeing that this particular object has this value that you know—and it’s all kind of consensus-based. So it's very risk-averse in the first place. So anything digital is like first of all just like new and not necessarily like we've established this is art and it's okay and then also like how do you own it and how do you keep it—and there's all those questions.

But I've seen like different models, you know, there's, you know, things like Electric Objects where you can—which is a platform for people to distribute images and they've tried like a number of different subscription or selling models.

Um, I was talking with someone at a company recently where they are trying to use the blockchain as a way to like sign—kind of like verify the originality of a digital file, so you might make a copy but you would have the bit marked one or something like that.

But I haven't seen any model that really like who has worked or has caught on in any way.

So yeah, I don't know what the answer is. I think that there is one. I mean, the thing is like—eight, I think it used to be like, oh, there's these like digital artists, and you're saying like they're still not really represented in like the art world at large—but also like every artist is starting to use technology now—like at seeing these, you know, I teach in a program that uses technology, but seeing the grad scenes in fine art, it's like they're all like making GIFs and using computers and using like 3D software, so I think they're going to have to figure out something that is not going back into the box totally or you have to get really good at painting.

So is there like what are you really excited about right now?

Like, what are you working on?

I don't know if excited is the right word, but I've been like really obsessed with just all this home automation stuff and thinking about Alexa and products like that—Google Home—and it's so interesting for me compared to something like Google Glass where people were kind of—there was this huge like rejection of it when it came out, whereas with Alexa I see like, oh, my parents have one! Actually, they got like two more for Christmas just because they liked it so much! I like my grandma has got one or my friend has one and it’s like nobody's having such a knee-jerk reaction to it.

I think they are selling it really differently—they kind of like don't make it too smart at first. They roll it out, it's like, oh, it's just like a smart speaker and they don't talk about like all the really technical things that could be done or they are doing already.

I think that is like coming really soon. It's like first we have to get people used to like the talking speaker and then it could be like the talk—you could have controlled everything and like knows every detail about you and extremes it also the lab, whatever.

But, um, so for me, it's just like so provocative that it's in the home and to think of like the home is the place for you—our first—you first learn how to be a person and like talk to people, you understand what your culture and your values are and what, you know, your history is. A lot of that shaped by like your interactions with your environment.

And so if you've got this device or this home system that is answering your questions or talking to you in a certain way or shaping your interactions, like how does that change? And like that's a pretty small group of developers that are designing these things. That's a very, you know, sort of limited set of experiences.

How do you account for like the huge range of people that might be using this?

So that's—that's what we've been thinking about. And then the project I'm working on is I'm trying to become—I like Amazon Alexa—but I'm making a service it's called Lauren, and the idea is that I will come into your home and set up all these devices and cameras, and then I'll watch you and, you know, control your home for you and try to be like better than Alexa—you know, try to anticipate your needs, got to care more, try to, you know, imagine what would this relationship with your Home Smart Home be like if it was like really taking to its full potential?

Wow! So now like you're exactly on the opposite end of the dating.

Yeah, I guess so.

Then this is—you're asking earlier about whether I ever control people, so I guess I'm a brain—the controlling ends, I guess, in this case.

You're exam—a yeah. I know. I feel like all your projects have like basically trained people to deal with computers as like empathetic things because they think at least that there's someone behind it operating it, and now you're like we've reached an AI, and now you're leapfrogging it again to it become the human behind it.

Yeah, yeah! Well, so another piece of this is thinking about these services like TaskRabbit or Uber or like where—or Mechanical Turk, where you've got some human on some side of it, and you—depending on the service, it's a different amount of like humaneness to this person that's working for you.

Like Amazon Mechanical Turk, like they're just like an ID number basically, and I've seen these like really interesting ads—interesting but ads—for like TaskRabbit where it's like lifestyle photography—like woman in our home, drinking cup of tea and it's like, like life post chores TaskRabbit. Oh wait, but like the chores are still happening! Like it's just like there's a person that you don't see that doing them.

And then this won't wait, okay? Not like we eliminated them with technology.

So it's kind of, you know—that's another angle in this project just like what is the human behind the scenes and like, I don't know, are they enjoying this, is this—are you completely at the service of the other person that tries to imagine you're not there, or is it actually like this relationship in this case where like I might have some connection with them?

Or is there any place for a human to still be better than artificial intelligence? Or it's like, you know, Alexa can be able to do this really soon, and I'm actually not as good.

Well, I think that that's the bet, right? Like the low-level tasks or the repetitive tasks get automated out, and hopefully like creative, like high-level knowledge work tasks are remaining, but I have no idea.

Yeah, I mean I think the thing is—that's how we like—we like to think that like the things that get automated are the easy things, and the things that don't are the ones that require more education and their training or higher-level skills.

But actually, I think it divides more like the more human sort of emotional labor is the stuff that just can't get automated. It doesn't have to be high-end. It could just be like a person that greet you at the door like it's harder to replace that with a robot than driving a car which is a more complicated skill.

So when you have all the cameras set up around someone's house and you're like observing them, do you ever feel that like you're going to just develop this incredible amount of empathy and become really attached to them and then have difficulty when they like turn off the Lauren device?

Yeah, then I'm just out.

Um, yeah, I do kind of wonder. I think actually what I'm trying to do with all these projects is just—I realized like bootstrap myself into a place where I get to have this like connection with someone.

And part of that is because I just feel so bad at doing that. Like over, like, you know, I'm with my friend at a coffee shop. He just strikes up a conversation with the woman behind the counter and I'm like, I don't know how to do that! But I'm going to build this like huge elaborate system and then maybe through that, while I'm watching them brush their teeth and like helping them, we'll have some, you know, human moment together.

Yeah, so yeah maybe a little bit of that. I—the plan is that if you sign up for the service, there's sort of a consultation, and we talk for a moment and beforehand just so it's not like totally random personally.

I don't really know me well, but they have a sense of who this person is, and we kind of talk about like what would you—not, you know, what do you want Lauren to do for you? Well, and then try to enact some of that through when it actually happens.

Okay! And so the deal is that your physical body is not going to like enter the house; like you're never going to do like a chore for them. None of that. But like you can engage like an API with other services?

Yes! I'm building the system where like I’ll be able to turn on and off any electronic device. I can like see you at the door, unlock it or not depending—turn on their shower or not or turn it off, and they can also talk to me like, you know, Lauren, what's the weather today—and I ruin—but I had this like high powers argument clock.

Well, so I think it will be ideally—it would be like a year or something fun.

Well, I think it will be like three days or something because what happens with a lot of these performances is that people kind of sign up and they don't know what to expect, and then it usually—it's very interesting and kind of intense.

But I don't want to be like too much. You know, it's like you want to go to a movie and have some different experience, but you don't want to be like so much that you can barely deal with it. So I'll limit it to like some shorter number of days where like they get a taste of this feeling.

Okay! And then you're like on the clock for like a few hours or something?

Well, for the whole time during that like three days or so, but like I can sleep when they're sleeping, and I'll build a system that tells me like weeks when they're like,

Yeah! So what about that? Because that was - wasn’t at the Electric Objects project where you were like on people's Facebook pages?

So, yeah, well, explain that one.

So the idea there—it’s a little bit convoluted—but they—so Electric Objects made this—they had this idea like anyone should be able to support art, and so they made this Kickstarter that was like five dollars, and you basically—you fry dogs, and it goes to commission for artists to make a piece of art, and the only requirement for the artist was that they had to incorporate the people that had supported them in some way.

And so I asked them for all their social media handles that they wanted to give, and then for all their like—thousand backers total, I spent five minutes looking through all their social media. And so I set up this smart—just like queue them up and like show me open all their tabs, and I would start scrolling.

And so this would—you could see that watch online! You could go, and see exactly what I was looking at, and then also in the corner of a little box that was like a camera on me of me like, you know, reacting to their stuff.

Yeah, it was like a social chair thing, yeah.

So it lasted for a week—I did like eight hours a day or something—and then it got through all—when those people just like—

And did you give them any feedback or was such as you as observer?

Um, I liked things sometimes. I didn't want to get—like I only had five minutes, so I didn’t like comment or anything like that. But yeah, it was mostly just me observing.

But it was also real time, and I was going alphabetically, so you could kind of—there were actually a couple people that happen to watch while I was like browsing them.

No, it's kind of cool, 'cause I just wonder like if in a similar vein you start creeping people out—like knowing that they're being watched by you.

Yeah, I think there will be a weird part of it. Um, and then the question is like, well, does this feel more invasive than like, you know, Google Dropcam or less? Or if you know that, like it’s a human—but like your camera’s not going anywhere—you know, I’m the only one that will see it versus it going into some archived somewhere potentially.

Are you going to like log like advertising terms and try and sell them stuff?

That’s a good idea! I hadn’t thought about that!

You know what you need right now? I think a like blared!

Oh yeah, exactly! Do you want me to order you some of that?

Okay, so I actually heard about you like three or four or five years ago when I was running this thing called Comedy Hack Day, which is basically just building apps that were funny and then demoing them on stage shows, just a hackathon with like funny projects.

And I came across all your stuff all the time because people just send it to me, and what I always wondered before I met you with like how in on the joke you were—like if you're this girl who knows it's funny, am I laughing?

Yeah, like if you're just this person who's like giving a talk about her project, and like you keep getting like applause breaks and you ain't fertilizing!

I'm just trying to like learn how to interact with people and then everyone laughs and then you think keep presenting!

Yeah, until like meeting you now, I like get the sense that you're very in on the joke, but like how much of your intention is to make this thing that's actually functional that helps you interact with people, and how much of it is just to be like point at something, be like this is interesting, maybe it's funny as well?

Mm-hmm. Well, first I just love that you didn't hear—like, this is—this is people have any idea was laughing at her!

Um, yeah, so it's definitely—I give this question a lot and sometimes it’s asked like, you know, are you optimistic or critical about the future? And I'm like yes, well, and then they say which?

And I'm like, well, whichever—what the opposite of whatever you’re using!

But no, more seriously like I feel like it’s impossible to say, you know—this any one thing is like a bad or good or the right track of wrong direction, yet we are asked to respond to things so quickly. It’s like you scroll through it, and you’re supposed to be like, I like that. Alright, I’m going to write an angry tweet about that thing!

And so I really want to just like make a space where people can just like consider things for a moment and sort of imagine what it is we’re getting ourselves into. And so I find humor like a way to do that because, you know, you laugh and then you kind of—there’s always some truth to every joke into people, it’s—it’s less like let me lecture you about this thing we should all think about, and more like here’s something ridiculous. Now let me tell you—that's the future!

Yeah, I mean, it’s like I used to work at The Onion, like with the term look like Flintstone vitamin. So like kind of a sweet thing but it has some amount of nutrients.

I like that! It’s like basically your projects too, right?

Yeah! And I wonder like on the flip side, like why so much of this like near-future science fiction, Black Mirror type TV content is like almost across the board negative and like fearful, whereas like your stuff which I more often than not like catches some attention online when you release it, and it's like funny, and there don't seem to be as many like really negative, like the world is ending artists! But like yet the media is like the exact opposite. Give any idea why those like shows are successful?

I think they tap into a fear that people have and yet they present in a way that is sort of like relatable and not just like, you know, doom gloom headline. But I think for me, it's like important—I guess that’s part of it—like yes, we feel scared, we feel uncertain, things are changing quickly, we don’t know what’s going to happen, something seemed definitely going in a terrifying direction.

Um, but we can’t just like unwind or rewind and we can’t just stop it from coming, so how do we move forward? And so for me, it’s like essential to find the parts that are worth keeping that we are excited about and try to like do more of that. And so I guess with all these projects, it’s always like this layering of both of those things.

It’s like, yes, there’s this fear, there’s that—it is totally messed up—like what’s going on? But then there’s also the part where you’re like, oh, that’s kind of nice! You know, I just followed this person around all day while their phone was like broadcasting my location and like we had like a really sweet time!

I was weird and great!

Cool! Like have you ever used like WeChat where you can just like shake the phone?

Okay, yeah, yeah!

It's like very pointless but kind of sweet.

Yeah.

Have you like dug into your projects and tried to like retain people in your apps for longer periods of time to like create a lasting effect or a more lasting effect?

That's such a good question! I guess not. Um, I guess I mean there are a lot of like friendships that have sort of come out of these projects, and then I will continue to, you know, then, you know, watch a webcam in their bedroom, right? Not the less of that!

I mean, I actually met my husband through one of these projects, which is—that was when I was doing the Social Triggers thing. He was actually happened to be one of the people watching and giving advice unlike the last date, and then like I wrote to him after I'd been like, wow, this project is so interesting! Like I would love to meet up!

And then we—yeah, so crazy!

Yeah!

Right?

So if you always ask that project successful and like, I like, well, I mean, yeah kind of I got a husband out of it, I guess!

But I would, yeah obviously, but normally someone who has like helping you interact and being more—and what's his attitude toward other people? Like obviously—or maybe not obviously—he likes to be on the computer side of your projects or does he like to be told what to do?

Oh, um, he needs no instruction. He's just like totally comfortable.

Okay, yeah, he’s got little computers! He’s comfortable people!

Yeah, I just keep him around if I like—he's jealous, yeah—trying to learn!

And so—and so what is he—he's a digital artist as well, right?

Yeah!

What kind of stuff does he work on?

Well, so we work on a lot of projects together. So we did this Us+ project that I mentioned. His—he's maybe a little bit dives deeper in some of the theory and technical things that are possible.

And so right now he's working a lot of like machine learning experiments and doing some really close up on that. Recent—before that, he was really focused on computer vision.

So he did this one project where he had this like pile of mirror balls—like disco balls—and then he was—had a number of projectors that were aimed at them and a number of cameras, and the camera would like detect for every single surface of every single ball was and then project the proper pattern so that when it bounced off of the balls it would create these patterns on the walls—luckily morphing like you know, arrangements that were all like super calculated based on all these angles and reflection.

Yeah, that's pretty technical!

Yeah, yeah!

Very cool though!

Man!

And so, okay, so if someone like likes your work—like in what's-his-name?

Just people know, Kyle McDonald—yeah!

It's—someone like your work or Kyle's work and they want to start doing this kind of thing, where would you—like where do they get started? Do they go to art school? Do they learn like processing? What do they do?

Yeah!

I mean, I think tools like Processing or p5.js, openFrameworks, Arduino for electronics, these are really great places to just start messing around. School is great, but I don't think it's like necessary at all.

I think what's really actually exciting about these tools is that there are these communities of people online. And like, you know, artists have always been good at making community, but I think especially digital artists—like that is where they go to find each other.

And so I would say just start experimenting, hang online, try to figure out like what— I guess the biggest thing is like what is your unique way of looking at the stuff or working with it? You know, a lot of people, it's easy to make something sparkly, but like what—what do you have to say or what do you see in it that's different than what others do?

Do you find that by like contemplating, or do you find it by just doing stuff?

I think it's different for everyone. I just start with like my anxieties and force of nature.

Oh yeah, I guess. It's free of it! But yeah, I think doing stuff is usually a good place to go if you having—it’s not coming in your thoughts and womb.

Like I guess wrapping up like water!

Um, for people in art school, like what is your advice to them? Like how could someone make the most out of it?

Hmm, I think so a couple things—um, you know, and the thing you'll probably hear from your teachers are like, this is your moment to take risks and to fail, and you should do that. And, um, you know, that's pretty easy, but the people are the thing that is really special about grad school—you know, you're—the network that you make with the teachers or the people on the community in the alumni, but especially like your peers in the program, these are the people that you'll continue to run into and connect with throughout your life.

And so just to take—you know, not to be so focused on your work that you don't connect with the people around you.

And then the thing I wish I'd known was like to ask questions. Like I always felt like I was supposed to know what to do, and I never had any clue. And so I just tried to like get through it out getting trouble or something, but now I have—I always seem to, I just like asking me questions all day long.

Or like, I like, why—I wish I had done that! Like I could have gotten so much value out of it was like I didn't know you could ask anything.

Incredibly helpful! I'm like, when I was just starting to like do some Python stuff—like having that mentor that I could ask really dumb questions to made all the difference when it came to just like I would learn things that I wasn't even intending to learn because they're just like, oh, you just do that, and then it works! You're going to go, god, I wish!

And in my last question for you is—just like influences! So artists, I guess, most obvious, but done like any kind of like books or film or anything like that?

I would say artists, you know, ones that are sort of further than the careers that I'm looking at; they're like Sophie Calle, Jill Magid—both of them kind of dealing with surveillance and watching in really personal ways.

A lot of like performance artists like Tehching Hsieh—who like tied himself with a rope to his collaborator for a year and they didn’t separate. And I just think of this as like, you know, we do know it's like interaction design, but like, you know, a rope can like change your life.

I don't think they spoke to each other after that project ended.

Wow!

And yeah, and then I guess in terms of movies—oh! Actually enjoy—I read a lot of books and I read a lot of fiction. My favorite is like Joyce Carol Oates, and because I heard that like fiction changes your personality to change—I agree that!

However, I can be better than you people!

I'm not actually a Joyce skill, it's like, the one that you want, it's usually your character really twisted, and I also love this movie called Synecdoche, New York where it's like this artist kind of building this world that he sort of loses students often. But the last scene is like him listening to this—oh, the spoiler alert—of this audio tape where he's got these headphones and it's like instructing what to do and it's like go up the stairs into this like set of a house—this world he's build—and if I go up the stairs, lie down in bed, close your eyes, now like die—something like that. I think that was like the end of his life.

Yeah, so that's my dream for end of life!

Wow!

Yeah!

We’re definitely going to get there—probably there right now.

Yeah, right! An audiobook!

Cool, right? So if someone wants to like learn more about you, follow you online, where do you like publish stuff?

Yeah, um, so website Lauren-McCarthy. Yes! That's wrong. Um, and yeah, you can go there or you can—and that's where I publish most things. Like most of my pieces are first kind of released online as videos or intervention, so you might not even know it's my work, but you might see something pop up that is outraging people in your social media feed or something like that.

There you go!

Or will you be doing anything this summer that people can like check out?

Yeah! So I'm doing this home project, um, and I'm actually going to be open soon for signups, so you can look out for that.

And potentially we can—I can come watch you in your home and you can share everything, and that'll be on your like your website, your Twitter, call service, yeah.

And then the—I guess the other thing to check out is like p5.js.org which is this platform that I lead the development of if you're interested in, you know, making some code art yourself too.

Okay! Thank you!

Yeah, thank you!

So you're good.