See Me.

Lauren Lee McCarthy 劳伦·李·麦卡锡

I’m Glad You Asked

3pm - 10pm
Location: Portsmouth Square + Throughout Chinatown

I’m Glad You Asked spreads over Portsmouth Square and throughout Chinatown in San Francisco, augmenting the social landscape of the park. Various benches are virtually labeled with phrases such as “This seat is for people that need to be seen.” or “This seat is for people that are missing someone.” Visitors that identify with the statements may sit, inevitably mixing with unwitting visitors that are simply sitting. In the process of determining the other’s reasons for being there, spontaneous conversations may arise. “Excuse me, are you also missing someone?”

The piece grows from Lauren Lee McCarthy’s own feelings during pandemic times, never quite knowing where anyone is really at. Whether it's ok to ask, who is safe to talk to. How we each subjectively understand what's happening so differently, and how much our experience is shaped by our identity and the way the people around us perceive that identity. In the past, she would ride the subway and imagine at least one person was feeling something similar to her. But we have been isolated in our homes, wearing masks, and it's impossible to know if the few people you come into contact with can relate at all. Lauren Lee McCarthy also thinks about technology, and the way that it invisibly labels us, and attempts to fit us into predefined categories. In these politically divided filter bubble times, it seems we can each be having our own entirely different experience of what's happening, what's true. One person may take a seat thinking it has one label, the other may sit knowing nothing. Can they still have a conversation?

Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. She is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow, 2020 Sundance New Frontier Story Lab Fellow, 2020 Eyebeam Rapid Response Fellow, 2019 Creative Capital Grantee, and has been a resident at Eyebeam, ZERO1, CMU STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Autodesk, NYU ITP, 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. Lauren's 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 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. Lauren is an Associate Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts.