00:00 [chatter]
00:02 [chatter]
00:04 [chatter]
00:07 [chatter]
00:10 [chatter]
00:12 [chatter]
00:15 [chatter]
00:17 [chatter]
00:19 [chatter]
00:21 [chatter]
00:23 [chatter]
00:25 [chatter]
00:27 [chatter]
00:29 [chatter]
00:31 [chatter]
00:33 [chatter]
00:35 [chatter]
00:37 [chatter]
00:39 [chatter]
00:41 [chatter]
00:43 Hi, my name is Cece Moss.
00:45 I'm the Director and Chief Curator
00:47 of the Mandeville Art Gallery,
00:49 and I also hold a dual appointment
00:51 as Professor of Practice in the Department of Visual Arts
00:53 here at UC San Diego.
00:55 The Mandeville Art Gallery
00:57 is
00:59 a non-collecting institute
01:01 for contemporary art here at
01:03 UC San Diego.
01:05 It was established in 1966,
01:07 and
01:09 it was
01:11 established alongside with the
01:13 creation of the Department of Visual Arts
01:15 here.
01:17 It's always had a very
01:19 experimental program
01:21 with a focus on Southern California
01:23 artists, with a focus
01:25 on performance
01:27 and installation and
01:29 new art forms,
01:31 and has always been
01:33 a space for experimentation
01:35 here at UC San Diego.
01:37 And
01:39 yeah, I started this position
01:41 about a year ago.
01:43 The gallery just went through a major
01:45 renovation to the building.
01:47 So
01:49 the
01:51 gallery
01:53 moved to this space in
01:55 1975, and
01:57 then underwent a major renovation
01:59 which includes
02:01 a new HVAC system, new flooring,
02:03 new lighting, new kind of everything.
02:05 It's pretty much a new building.
02:07 And also part of that too is
02:09 the entire building is wrapped
02:11 in a surround LED
02:13 wall that encases the whole
02:15 entire exterior. And the whole
02:17 renovations were designed by Studio
02:19 E Architects, who are a firm
02:21 based here in San Diego.
02:23 And the gallery won a
02:25 Orchid Award, which is one of the
02:27 main architectural awards in the
02:29 Southern California region for the
02:31 renovation. I've been working as a
02:33 curator for the last 20 years. I
02:35 started at the New Museum in New York.
02:37 I also worked at RYZONE for many
02:39 years. And then I worked as
02:41 a curator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
02:43 in San Francisco. And then I
02:45 started an alternative space
02:47 in Los Angeles called GAS.
02:49 Which also we did a wonderful video
02:51 on Vernissage TV for that.
02:53 It's one of the best
02:55 piece of documentation of that
02:57 project. And then I came
02:59 down here for
03:01 this position. I've also been teaching for a long
03:03 time too. So I've
03:05 taught at SFAI and
03:07 CCA and NYU
03:09 and Scripps and USC.
03:11 So I also
03:13 taught for many years. And
03:15 I did my PhD at NYU
03:17 in comparative literature.
03:19 And I published a book
03:21 called Expanded Internet Art.
03:23 So a lot of my
03:25 academic work is looking at
03:27 art and the internet.
03:29 But then my curatorial
03:31 practice also involves a lot of those
03:33 topics. But
03:35 I'm also interested in social practice
03:37 and social engagement and
03:39 performance and video
03:41 and a lot of different formats.
03:43 And the great thing about this role and
03:45 the great thing about this institution is I'm able to
03:47 lean into all of those strengths.
03:49 And those focus
03:51 areas are very much also a part of the
03:53 decades of programming
03:55 that have occurred here at this
03:57 institution.
03:59 [Background conversation]
04:13 Right now, around
04:15 me, you see a solo
04:17 exhibition by Lauren Lee
04:19 McCarthy. It's titled
04:21 Bodily Autonomy.
04:23 Lauren Lee McCarthy is a
04:25 professor at UCLA in the
04:27 Design Media Arts program.
04:29 And this is her largest
04:31 solo exhibition to date.
04:33 So it's just been a real joy
04:35 to open such a
04:37 ambitious project
04:39 by one of the most important
04:41 artists working in the field of art
04:43 and technology in the United States
04:45 and internationally really.
04:47 And the show includes two
04:49 major bodies of work,
04:51 surrogate and saliva.
04:53 And both of
04:55 these works were supported
04:57 by Creative Capital and this show marks the
04:59 premiere of these works
05:01 after Lauren's been working on them for
05:03 many, many years.
05:05 Both with support from Creative Capital
05:07 but also through residencies at
05:09 Pioneer Works and a number of other
05:11 different institutions.
05:13 So it's a major project
05:15 for Lauren. Both of these
05:17 works are examining bio-surveillance
05:19 through related but
05:21 separate vantage points.
05:23 For surrogate,
05:25 Lauren proposes to be a
05:27 remote-controlled surrogate
05:29 to couples who are interested
05:31 in having Lauren carry
05:33 their child. And this
05:35 thought experiment fails
05:37 and Lauren isn't able to actually
05:39 realize it. But that
05:41 the project is sort of Lauren
05:43 talking to family members
05:45 about this concept.
05:47 Lauren talking to prospective parents.
05:49 Lauren also going through a
05:51 psychological evaluation
05:53 in order to be able to
05:55 go through with the surrogacy.
05:57 Like a lot of Lauren's work,
05:59 Lauren has also created
06:01 custom software as part
06:03 of the performance
06:05 and installation and video.
06:07 So there's on the
06:09 wall here, you see
06:11 the software that Lauren
06:13 created for prospective parents so they can
06:15 track her meals,
06:17 her calendar, what she's doing.
06:19 So clearly,
06:21 this is a project that's thinking about
06:23 reproductive technology and the future
06:25 reproductive technology
06:27 and reproductive rights.
06:29 It's also thinking about
06:31 new forms of family structures
06:33 and family systems. And then
06:35 also thinking about the future genetic engineering
06:37 and how that will impact
06:39 the legal parameters,
06:41 the familial norms
06:43 and all of these things as
06:45 we move into the future.
06:47 So the other body of work is
06:49 called Saliva.
06:51 This is a newer body of work.
06:53 And here, again,
06:55 Lauren is thinking about bio surveillance
06:57 and the
06:59 future of bio surveillance.
07:01 For the project,
07:03 Lauren has created a
07:05 saliva bar, which you see behind me.
07:07 And this is simply an invitation
07:09 for the public to exchange their
07:11 DNA with one another using
07:13 saliva. And the
07:15 point of this is to have
07:17 us reflect on how our DNA
07:19 is captured by
07:21 corporate entities. Obviously,
07:23 with the recent pandemic,
07:25 we were giving away
07:27 swabs of our DNA
07:29 to government
07:31 entities. So thinking about
07:33 the circulation of our DNA
07:35 information, who's capturing that
07:37 information, and what the future
07:39 of that will mean.
07:41 One of the big themes in the show is
07:43 data privacy, right?
07:45 And so one thing
07:47 the show is asking us to imagine is, like,
07:49 think about the lack of data privacy
07:51 we have in this current moment.
07:53 And let's imagine 10 or 20 years where our
07:55 DNA information is also
07:57 part of our larger data profile.
07:59 And what will
08:01 that open? What are the politics of that?
08:03 What are the ethics of that? All of these
08:05 really important questions.
08:07 So in order for the public to
08:09 think about this and have that occasion
08:11 to consider these things,
08:13 Lauren has invited
08:15 people to come and
08:17 donate their
08:19 saliva or their DNA
08:21 to this installation.
08:23 And in exchange, they take
08:25 someone else's saliva.
08:27 And the script for
08:29 these exchanges,
08:31 which you actually see one going on right behind me
08:33 right now, is
08:35 organized by software
08:37 that Lauren created with
08:39 Boas Sender,
08:41 where there's a script in the software
08:43 and
08:45 the audience is
08:47 invited to supply their
08:49 identifying information,
08:51 things like their race,
08:53 their favorite food, their star sign,
08:55 and then they can select
08:57 an anonymous donor, so it's all
08:59 anonymous, through the
09:01 information that they provide. So it's also thinking
09:03 about how we see each other through
09:05 kind of our data
09:07 and through our sort of basic
09:09 descriptive information. One of the
09:11 great things about the software, too, is it
09:13 allows participants to stop at any time.
09:15 So if they don't feel comfortable
09:17 with the exchange or if they aren't
09:19 comfortable with the terms of engagement, they can just
09:21 stop. So consent is a big thing
09:23 that's built into the
09:25 structure of the software.
09:27 And then also,
09:29 people can create their own terms.
09:31 And so some of the terms have been really
09:33 playful, like, "If you take my saliva,
09:35 you must take it on a hike today."
09:37 "If you take my saliva,
09:39 you have to wear it as jewelry."
09:41 So people
09:43 have been really kind of leaned into that
09:45 part of the script and made it their own.
09:47 And then
09:49 once you take someone's saliva from the
09:51 installation, you also get a receipt
09:53 that has those terms printed
09:55 out, and it's
09:57 put in a nice bag.
09:59 And then all of the exchanges are
10:01 facilitated
10:03 by UC San Diego students.
10:05 So Lauren actually ran
10:07 a training and a workshop here
10:09 directly with UC San Diego students.
10:11 So it allows them to connect
10:13 directly with an artist and participate in the
10:15 installation and facilitate these exchanges.
10:17 [Audience chatter]
10:33 I should also mention that we
10:35 commissioned site-specific
10:37 work for the exterior screen,
10:39 and that's produced by
10:41 Lauren Lee McCarthy and Casey Rees,
10:43 who's also a professor
10:45 at UCLA in the Design Media Arts Program.
10:47 And in that video, Lauren is
10:49 typing with her tongue, and she asks
10:51 the question over and over again, "Are you the perfect
10:53 specimen?" So much of the, like,
10:55 what does it mean to be
10:57 a specimen? Who is determining
10:59 what a specimen is? What is perfection?
11:01 I mean, these are a lot of the questions that are
11:03 present in the show, but they're looping
11:05 also outside in the exterior screen.
11:07 [Audience chatter]
11:31 [Audience chatter]
11:39 [Audience chatter]
12:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments