"Becoming Auto" with Lauren Lee McCarthy (UCLA)

When: Thursday Dec. 18, 06:00 pm (hybrid) Where: HfG Lichtbrücke

Free Entry. The talk will be held in English.

Conversations on Art and Media: Unconventional Computing is a new lecture series with invited guests from the expanded fields of media art and theory, co-organized by members of HfG Karlsruhe and ZKM. During winter semester 2026, the series discusses unconventional conceptions and materializations of computers as well as alternative ways of dealing with them. In the light of the quasi-monopoly of big tech companies and in view of powerful presets and standards, guest lectures and conversations will address the questions: To what extent can computers look or function differently? In which ways can we reflect on, perceive or handle computing devices differently or change them?

About our guest:
Lauren McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance, and algorithmic living. She is a 2024–26 Just Tech Fellow and was the 2022–23 Stanford Human Centered AI Artist in Residence. She has received grants and residencies from Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Sundance, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Autodesk, and Ars Electronica, and 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. Lauren's work has been exhibited internationally, at places such as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Lauren is also the creator of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code, with over 5 million users. She expanded on this work in her role from 2015–21 on the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation, whose mission is to serve those who have historically not had access to the fields of technology, code, and art in learning software and visual literacy. Lauren is a Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. She holds an MFA from UCLA and a BS Computer Science and BS Art and Design from MIT.

Further Dates: -Thursday Nov. 6, 06:00 pm, HfG Lichtbrücke: Špela Petric (Ljubljana / Amsterdam): Eeating back

• Thursday Dec. 11, 07:00 pm, ZKM Kubus, Jia Liu (Karlsruhe) & Edy Fung (Stockholm/Belfast): Superposition Composition
• Thursday Dec. 18, 06:00 pm (hybrid), HfG Lichtbrücke, Lauren Lee McCarthy (UCLA): Becoming Auto
• Thursday Jan. 22, 2026 01.30 pm, HfG Lichtbrücke, Nolwenn Maudet (Université de Strasbourg): Digital design and its relationships with environmental sustainability