The School of Art in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is excited to welcome artist and educator Lauren Lee McCarthy to the Visiting Lecture Series. The original lecture date of Thursday, Feb. 3 has been canceled and will be rescheduled at a later date.

McCarthy is a Los Angeles-based artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation and algorithmic living. She is the creator of p5.js, an open source programming language for learning creative expression through code online. She helps direct the Processing Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to promote software literacy within the visual arts, and visual literacy within technology-related fields — and to make these fields accessible to diverse communities.

"Programmer, artist, activist and teacher Lauren Lee McCarthy examines social relationships amid automation and algorithmic living," said Ryan Slone, assistant professor of graphic design. "In a time of unprecedented digital surveillance, McCarthy's investigations study the extent to which technology impacts our lives. We are honored to welcome Lauren Lee McCarthy as our inaugural visiting artist speaker in 2022." 

McCarthy is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow, 2020 Sundance New Frontier Fellow, 2020 Eyebeam Fellow, 2019 Creative Capital Grantee and has been a resident at Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Autodesk and Ars Electronica. 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.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, at places such as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Künste, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Seoul Museum of Art and the Japan Media Arts Festival.

She holds an Masters of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Science in art and design from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

McCarthy is currently an associate professor at University of California, Los Angeles in design media arts.