Min Jun Kim- Looking Outwards 8

Eyeo 2014 – Lauren McCarthy from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.

Speech from Lauren McCarthy

The speaker that I would like to discuss about today is Lauren McCarthy. She from New York city (currently based in Los Angelos) and is an artist and programmer. She is esteemed in the sense of programming because she was the person that developed P5js, which is the website that we use in class to learn various part of javascript. Her motto is “I make art that confuses me.” The statement makes me wonder a lot, because it kind of dives into the idea of what the purpose of art is. Is art merely there to look pleasing? Is it to make us think? Is it to invoke feelings?
She considers herself a more of a hacker than a people’s person, meaning that she has more of a ease at dealing with computers than fitting in to the norm, so to speak. Therefore she focuses a lot on in relationship between people and machines/devices in her body of work. A lot of the projects that she makes are related to how can technology make a person, more human?
Some of her artwork include: Happiness hat, anti-daydreaming device, body-contact training suit, and conversacube. These all focus on different aspects of what it mean to be human and sees to how it can help improve a person’s aptitude in that. I admire the happiness hat the most out of her artwork, because it makes one think, what does it really mean to be more human? Does simply emulating the behaviors of a refined human make someone more human? In a way, I differ in view from what the projects are trying to portray, because I think that the purpose/place it’s coming from is way more important than action itself. Meaning, just because I smile for the sake of smiling doesn’t make me more human. The smile should come from the desire to make someone else happier or to display how someone else is making me feel.
She presents her artwork by tying different stories and thoughts together with the project, instead of simply presenting them in an orderly manner. I think that this helps illustrate her main purpose and the purpose of the devices she creates. I think that by tying stories to how I present, I can more deeply engage the audience and such.

Website of artist: http://lauren-mccarthy.com/
Video of happiness hat is included in the embedded video.