Lynn Hershman Leeson

Lynn Hershman Leeson's performances and films continually challenge received notions of selfhood and issues of conditioned identity. Between the years of 1974 and 1978, Hershman Leeson explored these issues by assuming her performative alter ego, Roberta Breitmore. The results of this act produced a body of work consisting largely of letters, photographs, clothing, medical records, and drawings relating to the character's everyday existence, asserting the intricate relationship between the practical and the emotional, and between the artist and the character. Hershman Leeson's work in film, video and new media often looks at the ways in which bodies interact with their surroundings to define themselves. Her film Lorna (1983—84), which the artist herself has described as "the first interactive video art disk," enabled viewers to gain access to the main character's emotions in the manner of a "Name Your Own Adventure" story by allowing them to make important life decisions for her. New media was a continual preoccupation for Hershman Leeson in the 1980s and 1990s as she experimented with video, online environments, and artificial intelligence. She is currently Chair of the Film Department at the San Francisco Art Institute, Professor Emerita at the University of California—Davis, and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.