Lucas LaRochelle is a Canadian artist and designer based in Montreal, Quebec. They are best known as the creator of the community-based online collaborative mapping platform Queering the Map.

Early life and education

LaRochelle grew up in Ontario.[1] In 2016, they received a certificate in Co-Design from HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. In 2020, LaRochelle received a BFA in Design and Computation Arts from Concordia University.[2]

Work

LaRochelle's artistic work primarily explores community archives, internet studies, artificial intelligence and queer geography.[3]

They have exhibited and lectured widely, including at the Guggenheim Museum,[4] Ars Electronica,[5] the Museum of Design Atlanta,[6] Mozilla Festival,[7] the Phi Center,[8] Stanford University,[9] and University of Cambridge.[10]

Queering the Map

In May 2017, LaRochelle launched the community-based collaborative mapping platform Queering the Map, on which users submit their personal queer experiences to specific locations on a single collective map. LaRochelle has cited the lasting impact of personal memories on their perceptions towards places and Sara Ahmed's ideas on queerness as an orientation towards space as influences behind the project.[11] In February 2018, a cyberattack generating pins with comments in support of U.S. president Donald Trump forced LaRochelle to take down the site, relaunching it in April 2018.[12] Since its inception, users have contributed over 500,000 submissions in 23 languages to the platform.[13]

In 2018, LaRochelle received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica[14] and was longlisted for the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards[15] and the Lumen Prize for Digital Art[16] for their work on Queering the Map. They have given numerous lectures and workshops on and around the project in Canada, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Switzerland and the U.S., including at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus's School of Architecture in San Juan and the Otherwise festival in Zurich.[17]

In 2019, LaRochelle began developing QT.bot, an artificial neural network trained to generate hypothetical queer stories using the data submitted to Queering the Map.[18]

References

  1. ↑ Singh, Angad. "Queering The Map: A Skype Call With Lucas LaRochelle". Ruthless Magazine.
  2. ↑ "info". lucas larochelle.
  3. ↑ "info". lucas larochelle.
  4. ↑ "info". Guggenheim YouTube.
  5. ↑ "Prix Ars Electronica Exhibition". Ars Electronica.
  6. ↑ "Design Justice: Queering the Map". Museum of Design Atlanta.
  7. ↑ "Art meets Tech at MozFest 2022 with the Rhizome of Babel". Mozilla Foundation.
  8. ↑ "Sex, Desire and Data". Sex, Desire and Data.
  9. ↑ "Barry Lawrence Ruderman Conference on Cartography – Gender, Sexuality and Cartography". Stanford Library.
  10. ↑ "Conference: The Queer Art of Feeling: Emotion, Sensation and the Body in Queer Cultures". University of Cambridge.
  11. ↑ Singh, Angad. "Queering The Map: A Skype Call with Lucas LaRochelle". Ruthless Magazine.
  12. ↑ "Queering the Map is back". The Outline.
  13. ↑ "Just Made a Queer Memory? Drop a Pin". New York Times.
  14. ↑ "Queering The Map". Prix Ars Electronica 2018.
  15. ↑ "Queering The Map". Information is Beautiful Awards.
  16. ↑ Rapoport, Carla. "Academics in the Spotlight". Lumen Prize.
  17. ↑ "info". lucas larochelle.
  18. ↑ "QT.bot | Lucas LaRochelle". Studio XX.
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