Motherhood as Medium: Lauren McCarthy, Sputniko!, Yoon Chung Han & Jiabao Li
Presented in conjunction with Jiabao Li’s solo exhibition Womb Wetware, this panel brings together Lauren Lee McCarthy, Sputniko!, Yoon Chung Han, and Jiabao Li. All four are artists, professors, entrepreneurs, and mothers whose work approaches reproduction not simply as a private biological experience, but as something shaped by technology, medicine, labor, law, markets, and cultural expectation.
Their projects move from McCarthy’s Surrogate, in which she proposed carrying another person’s baby while they monitored and directed her through an app, to Sputniko!’s Menstruation Machine, a wearable device that simulates menstrual bleeding and pain, and The Nursery, a generative artwork inspired by watching her daughter grow. Han’s Dreaming Babies, developed from her experience of egg retrieval and genetic screening, imagines 23 speculative babies linked to chromosomal variations. Li’s Womb Wetware transforms pregnancy, menstrual blood, AI motherhood into bio-art, games, and performance.
Together, the artists will discuss motherhood, surrogacy, menstruation, fertility treatment, genetic selection, babies, AI, bodily autonomy, and reproductive labor.
Speakers
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist and Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts whose performances, software, installations, and films examine intimacy and care amid surveillance, automation, and algorithmic life. In Surrogate, she proposed carrying another person’s baby while allowing the intended parents to monitor and direct her body through an app. Her projects LAUREN and SOMEONE expose the hidden human labor behind apparently autonomous caregiving systems. She is also the creator of the open-source creative coding platform p5.js.
Website: get-lauren.net
Sputniko!, also known as Hiromi Ozaki, is a British-Japanese multimedia artist, filmmaker, speculative designer, and professor. Through film, robotics, biotechnology, music, and interactive installation, she examines how emerging technologies reshape gender, identity, intimacy, and society. Her works include Menstruation Machine, Menstrualverse, and The Nursery. She is also the founder and CEO of Cradle, a company addressing menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause in the workplace.
Website: sputniko.com
Yoon Chung Han is an interactive media artist, interaction designer, researcher, and Associate Professor of Graphic Design at San José State University. Working across audiovisual installation, biological art, data visualization, sonification, and generative media, she translates complex bodily and environmental information into immersive experiences.
Website: yoonchunghan.com
Jiabao Li is an artist, designer, creative technologist, and Associate Professor at Northeastern University. Working across AI, XR, bio-art, performance, and installation, she explores feminist biotech, more-than-human ecologies, multispecies intelligence, and how technology reshapes perception. Womb Wetware brings together works created during pregnancy, after birth, and through years of research with menstrual blood, including AI Mom™, Menstrual Garden, Super Mom Training Gym, and Living Legacy. Her work has been presented at MoMA, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Ars Electronica, and the Exploratorium.
Website: jiabaoli.org