Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance, and algorithmic living. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work SOMEONE was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica and the Japan Media Arts Social Impact Award, and her work LAUREN was awarded the IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction. McCarthy’s work has been exhibited internationally. She is also the creator of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code. She expanded on this work in her role, from 2015–21, on the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation. She has received grants and residencies from Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA, Sundance, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Autodesk, and Ars Electronica. McCarthy is a professor at UCLA Design Media Arts.

Project Description

As automated vehicular technology advances faster than regulation, decisions about how to respond to risks on the road and how to ethically test these systems are made with little oversight. Prioritizing development of expensive individual vehicles over public transportation further exacerbates climate change and erodes the social fabric of communities. Driverless is an artistic research project that will explore the social and environmental impacts of AI and automation through the lens of self-driving vehicles. The final output will be a group performance that participants experience while riding in their own cars, guided by custom software running on a smartphone. The software design process will be based on a series of public workshops and interviews, focusing on the values and concerns of community members whose living and working conditions are directly affected by AI.