LO 8 – The Creative Practice of An Individual

Lauren McCarthy is an American artist and computer programmer whose work focuses on the impact of surveillance, automation, and network culture on social relationships. She is known for her performance, artificial intelligence, and programming/computer-based interaction work. McCarthy created p5.js, the version of JavaScript that we work with in class. She graduated from MIT, where she studied computer science and art and design.

McCarthy asks deep, thought-provoking questions in her work, such as “What is the purpose of art?” and “What is the relationship between attention and surveillance?” One of her projects that I find most intriguing, which I learned about in her Eyeo talk, was “Follower.” “Follower” is a service that provides a real-life follower for a day; you sign up, get an app, and wait to be matched, not knowing what will happen. Your assigned follower tracks you for a day (out of sight, but within your awareness) and takes a photo of you. While it seems very intrusive and scary to have a real-life follower, I think that this project raises some interesting questions and points to the complexities of human connection and desires.

Below I have included McCarthy’s Eyeo talk from 2019 as well as a video/images of her project “Follower.”