Lynn Hershman
Lynn Hershman Leeson has been cited as the
"most influential woman working in new media". She has worked
extensively in photography, video, installation, and interactive and
net-based media. Her 53 videotapes and 7 interactive installations have
garnered many international awards, including First Prize Vigo, Spain
and First Prize Crystal Trophy, Montbelliard, France.
In 1994, Hershman Leeson was the first woman to receive a tribute and
retrospective at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and she
was awarded the ZKM/Seimens Media Arts Award. In 1998, she was a
Sundance Screenwriter Fellow and was honored with the Flintridge
Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts. She is a
recipient of the Independent Spirit Award and the prestigious Golden
Nica Prix Ars Electronica, and in 2002 was nominated for the World
Technology Network Award for Innovation in the Visual Arts.
In 2006 she received the Innovation That Matters Award from ISEA,
Zero One and Isea.
Lynn Hershman Leeson‘s first feature film, Conceiving Ada, starring
Tilda Swinton, was shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, the
Toronto International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film
Festival and 35 other festivals worldwide. It received the award of
"Outstanding Achievement in Drama" from the Festival of Electronic
Cinema. Conceiving Ada was released by Fox Lorber in February 1999 and
on DVD in February 2000.
Her latest film, Teknolust, starring Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Davies,
premiered in the American Showcase of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
It has screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, the San
Francisco International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film
Festival, the Taos Talking Pictures Festival, the Walker Art Center,
and at many other film festivals and museums worldwide. Hershman
Leeson received the Alfred P. Sloan Film Prize, a prize awarded for the
direction of a film that explores science and technology themes with
originality and insight, challenging existing stereotypes. In February
2003, Teknolust launched its national theatrical release and
premiered in Europe at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Lynn Hershman Leeson's artwork is held in numerous collections,
including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the National Gallery of
Canada, DG Bank (Frankfurt), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), The
William Lehmbruch Museum (Duisburg), the ZKM Mediammuseum (Karlsruhe),
the University Art Museum (Berkeley), and the Hess Collection. The
Henry Art Gallery of Seattle curated a major international museum
retrospective of her work, Hershmanlandia, to tour in 2006-2008.
The University of California Press published a monograph of her
work in 2004. Hershman Leeson is Emeritis Professor at the University
of California, Davis and A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.