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Lauren McCarthy


Info︎

LAUREN works
  1. LAUREN
  2. SOMEONE
  3. LAUREN Portable
  4. Anyone Home?
  5. Exhibition: What can I do for you?
  6. Exhibition: You Can Say
  7. The Changing Room
  8. Waking Agents
  9. I.A. Suzie

Saliva works
  1. Exhibition: Bodily Autonomy (Saliva Bar)
  2. Saliva Retreat
  3. Saliva
  4. Are You the Perfect Specimen?
  5. Testing

Surrogate works
  1. Surrogate
  2. Exhibition: Home Birth
  3. Exhibition: Passage
  4. Surrogate Performance
  5. Womb Walk
  6. Training Set

Autonomous works
  1. AUTO
  2. AUTO LA
  3. AUTO TUNE
  4. Voice In My Head
  5. HOST
  6. Unlearning Language
  7. Seeing Voices

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

🔒 Archive
  1. p5.js
  2. Open Source Software Toolkits for the Arts Report
  3. Web We Want (W3C TPAC)
  4. Follower
  5. Social Turkers
  6. Vibe Check
  7. I’m glad you asked
  8. Autoreply
  9. pplkpr
  10. us+
Mark

HOST


This is a surprise party. Accept the invite. Select your preferred settings. Insert an earpiece and listen. You are the perfect host.

HOST (v1)

HOST is a party as performance where guests are invited to become human hosts for an AI that guides their interactions. Guests choose from a range of roles and identities, selecting earpieces from silver platters like hors d'oeuvres. Once inserted into their head, custom software listens in and generates personalized directions, shaping their conversations, actions, and affect. Humorously blurring the roles of guest, host, and machine, HOST invites reflection on our increasingly parasitic and parasocial relationship with tech.















Each HOST performance begins with guests setting an intention for the gathering. This might be an individual goal or a desire for the group experience. The software works to subtly enact the guests’ intentions through the words and actions it prompts in the guests. At every moment, the guests have a choice: Do they follow the directions of the technology that they are playing host to or do they make their own decisions? With each guest receiving different directions privately via their earpiece, the authenticity and agency of each person is unknown. But through open conversation the guests have an opportunity to make meaning together.

What does it mean to be a good host? Who and what are you welcoming? How can we be together in a charged time? What are you holding? Is AI in your consciousness? What are you hosting?  
The performance was commissioned for The Music Center’s Black Bar Social program.

Photos: Will Tee Yang for The Music Center
Software: Stalgia Grigg
Performers: Chelly Jin, Dorothy Dubrule, Gabriela Ruiz, Gregory Barnett, Miss Barbie-Q, Parag K. Mital, Sean Rowry
Documentation: Gabriel Noguez, Antonio Noguez
Teaser Video: David Leonard
Creative Production: Daniel Soto
Studio Assistance: Wylie Kasai
Special Thanks: Kamal Sinclair, Beata Calinska, Taylor Comen, and the Music Center Team
In collaboration with UCLA Social Software