Celebrating a Decade of Culture and Innovation in San Francisco
Bodily Autonomy
Lauren Lee McCarthy
For the past fifteen years, Lauren Lee McCarthy has worked in performance, video, installation, software, artificial intelligence, and other media to address how an algorithmically determined world impacts human relationships and social life. Bodily Autonomy is McCarthy’s largest solo exhibition in the United States to date, and travels to Gray Area from the UCSD Mandeville Art Gallery.
The show brings together two major works —Surrogate and Saliva—to examine bio-surveillance. Surrogate takes the form of performances, videos, and installations wherein McCarthy offers her body up as a remote-controlled surrogate to individuals and couples interested in having a child. This proposition is never fully realized by the artist, but it prompts important conversations regarding familial norms, legal barriers, genetic manipulation, gender, and reproduction. Saliva is a series of performances, installations, and videos about DNA sampling and data harvesting through the routine collection of swabs and spit. As a counter-gesture McCarthy has devised a saliva exchange station where visitors can trade their own samples with one another through the assistance of an attendant. The process sidesteps the anonymity of medical and corporate entities, and invites active discussions on data privacy, race, gender, and class as they pertain to genetic material. Together, Surrogate and Saliva encourage a potent and timely dialogue regarding bodily autonomy in times of rapid technological development and increased corporate and government surveillance.
Bodily Autonomy Gallery Hours
September 12 – 15
Visit the exhibition during festival hours, and in between each talks and performances.
September 18 – 22
Wednesday – Friday 4 – 8PM
Saturday & Sunday: 12 – 6PM
Artist
Lauren Lee McCarthy
Curator
Ceci Moss
Exhibition Organizer
The Mandeville Art Gallery is an institute for transformative contemporary art. Previously known as the University Art Gallery, the Mandeville Art Gallery is a long-standing fixture on the UC San Diego campus with a five-decade history of presenting innovative art in the context of a major research university. Managed by the School of Arts and Humanities and located on the west end of the Mandeville Center for the Arts, the Mandeville Art Gallery operates as a venue for artistic exhibitions and events serving both the university and local community, and it newly re-opened after extensive renovations in March 2023.
Festival Opening Night
Saliva Bar Performance: Thursday, September 12, 30 min after Doors Open on Opening Night
Consumers have been trained to regularly swab, spit, and give up ownership of their bodily substances to corporations and government run centers. These fluids hold the data of our DNA, personal information, and identity. Can an individual human become your saliva deposit center instead? Can we take saliva exchange back into our own hands?
In this opening performance, you are invited to exchange a sample of your saliva with one of Lauren Lee McCarthy’s own. A Terms Of Exchange outlines the artist’s intention to protect the privacy of your identity and biodata. Participants are free to do as they like with McCarthy’s own saliva. The growing collection of saliva collected by the artist through these performances is an archive of a moment when the boundaries of our bodies and DNA is shifting.
Festival Closing Night
Surrogate Performance: Sunday, September 15, 7PM
Surrogate is a body of Lauren Lee McCarthy’s work centered around issues of reproductive technology and bodily autonomy.
Beginning with the proposal to become a surrogate, McCarthy offers her body to carry someone else’s baby while they use an app to monitor and control her for nine months.
To close Gray Area Festival, McCarthy will present the interactive live performance from this body of work. In her one woman show, McCarthy takes the audience through the journey of becoming a remote-controlled surrogate.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the Saliva Bar?
Visitors to Bodily Autonomy are invited to participate in a saliva exchange presented at Gray Area courtesy of the Mandeville Art Gallery at UCSD.
Visitors will be asked to spit into a vial, capturing a sample of their own saliva in exchange for someone else’s. They will then be guided through a personalized saliva selection experience where they choose the perfect sample to collect based on the donor’s self-described physical, personality, and lifestyle characteristics.
Devised as a counter-gesture to the routine collection of swabs and DNA samples—such as those related to medical protocols, COVID-19 testing, and direct-to-consumer genetic testing services—the Saliva Bar sidesteps the anonymity of medical and corporate entities, and invites active discussions on data privacy, race, gender, and class as they pertain to the intimacy of our genetic material.
How does the Saliva Bar work?
Participation in the Saliva Bar is on a first come, first served basis. Visitors to the exhibition who chose to participate will be guided by a trained gallery attendant through the process of donating a sample of their own saliva and selecting someone else’s to take home.
During the exchange, attendants will ask visitors to spit into a vial and complete a form describing their informational profile. Next, donors will specify the terms of use of their own saliva sample. Once their intake is complete, their spit is filed into the collection on display. Then, in consultation with the attendant, donors can review available samples and select a vial to take home.
What safety measures will be in place at the Saliva Bar?
The Gray Area team is committed to the utmost safety of Saliva Bar participants and other gallery visitors. All Saliva Bar attendants are trained volunteers who will be provided with PPE, and given single-use equipment to capture saliva donations. All saliva samples will be collected and securely stored in medical-grade sealed vials. In addition, the vials for the saliva samples contain a strong disinfectant solution in order to dissolve all contaminants.
If you have any safety-related questions or concerns, please feel free to reach us at: [email protected].
