Spark Artist

Laura Allcorn is an artist and performer producing work as the Institute For Comedic Inquiry. Her participatory performances make it amusing for audiences to explore how emerging technologies shape their lives. She’s hosted a game show about AI-authored emails, designed a mini-market about algorithmic profiling, and led an absurdist workout for thwarting surveillance technology. Laura’s performances revolve around a comedic premise set in the near-future, surfacing the absurdity of the situations we might face. She draws audiences into a state of play with visually striking sets, new-fangled props designed for interaction, costumes, and visual media. Facilitated by an improvisational performance score, audiences play themselves, following their impulses and sharing their lived experiences.

Her work has been staged in the US and internationally at The Victoria & Albert Museum, Dublin Fringe Festival, Science Gallery (Dublin; Monterrey; Detroit; and Melbourne in2025), Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, ArtScience Museum Singapore, Museum of Discovery at University of South Australia; Creative Time Summit X New York; and Risk/Reward Pavement Festival.

She’s received three Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grants and a RACC Project Grant. In 2023, she was co-awarded a Science Foundation Ireland grant with her research collaborator at Trinity College Dublin’s Art + Humanities Research Centre, where she was the inaugural Public Engagement Fellow. Allcorn has lived in Portland, Oregon since 2009. She received her MFA in Applied Craft + Design from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2011.