The first Human AI Art Award will be given in 2024 to the Chinese-American artist Lauren Lee McCarthy. This award is a joint initiative by Kunstmuseum Bonn and Deutsche Telekom and honours outstanding artistic performance at the interface between the visual arts and technology – particularly artificial intelligence.

For her prize-winning work, “LAUREN”, Lauren Lee McCarthy observed volunteer participants for a full week, through a network of remote-controlled cameras, microphones, speakers, and other electronically controlled devices. The Los Angeles-based artist interacted with them as a personal virtual voice assistant. She stepped into the lives of the residents – commenting, making suggestions, and changing the lighting. She wanted to be a better personal assistant, a human one that identified needs early on and responded to the residents’ individuality with humor and empathy. At the same time, she intruded into their personal lives as a constant observer. She then used this material to create a documentary video that will be presented in the “Smart Home” installation that has been redesigned specifically for the Human AI Art Space. The resulting site-specific artwork impressively addresses the tension between beliefs, simplification, doubt, and curiosity in dealings with AI technologies. The exhibition will take place in the ‘Human AI Art Space’ specially designed for the prize, which also makes an architectural statement in the outdoor area in front of the museum. Lauren Lee McCarthy will be present at the award ceremony and opening of the exhibition and her work will be activated as part of a performance. Visitors will be able to interact with the human voice assistant and thus become part of the performance installation. The installation will also be activated by performances on several additional dates during the exhibition.

Lauren Lee McCarthy, a Los Angeles resident, was born in Boston in 1987 and studied Computer Science, Art, and Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She earned an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she currently teaches as a Professor of Design Media Arts.