Lynn Hershman Leeson inspires Cinema Cycle at Porto Book Fair 2020

Porto Book Fair 2020 features a Cinema Cycle that is forged on the artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson, who granted an exclusive interview to Porto.; read all about it here.

Porto Book Fair 2020 features a Cinema Cycle that is forged on the artwork by Lynn Hershman Leeson, the first female artist and filmmaker who shaped cinematographic representation based on the relationship between people and technology, namely art media. Lynn Hershman Leeson granted an exclusive interview to Porto., via email, sharing some ideas on her life and art. Read all about it here.

Guilherme Blanc, Director of Contemporary Art and Cinema of the municipal company Ágora, developed the cinema cycle with film screenings at the Auditorium of the Almeida Garrett Library of an anthology of Lynn Hershman's work.

The cinema cycle features five films directed by the American artist and filmmaker, at the Auditorium of Almeida Garrett Library. The cycle kicked off with the screening of "Commercials for NY hotel rooms / Seduction of a cyborg / Vertighost / Shadow stalker" on 30th August, "Conceiving Ada", screened on 1st September, "Strange Culture", on 6th September, "Teknolust", on 8th September, and concludes with "!Women Art revolution (!W.A.R.)", on 13th September. All sessions begin at 9.30pm.

Leeson's work raises awareness on topics such as identity and consumerism, privacy and control, human vs machine, pivoted by real and virtual worlds. Her work spans for more than 40 years, featuring performance, moving image, drawing, collage, text-based work, site-specific interventions, and digital technologies.

Hershman is a pioneer in combining art media with innovative forms of art, being the first artist to launch an interactive piece using Videodisc, a precursor to DVD (Lorna, 1983-84), and also the first artist to incorporate a touch screen interface into her artwork (Deep Contact, 1984-1989).

Her work is on show at the Museum of Modern Art, at the William Lehmbruck Museum, the ZKM (Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie), at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at the National Gallery of Canada, di Rosa, the Walker Art Center and at the University Art Museum, Berkeley. Concurrently, her work also features private collections.

It is worth highlighting that Leeson created a persona, assuming the identity of "Roberta Breitmore", from 1974 to 1978. The most astonishing fact about this alter ego is the full commitment to being that persona, which included a physical self-transformation through make-up, clothing, and wigs, and a whole character, with a driver's license and credit card and letters from her psychiatrist.

All sessions are entrance free.

See here for information on authors, opening hours and all the general information.

Lynn Hershman Leeson granted an exclusive interview to Porto., via email, sharing some ideas on her life and art, on the link between humans and technology, and on what it meant to be an artist whose "work was not taken seriously".

Porto.: How would you define yourself intellectually and artistically wise?

Lynn Hershman Leeson: I do not like definitions because they are limiting. I like to explore life and art and ideas without being boxed into definitions. 

Porto.: "The relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression", this sentence is cited from "https://www.lynnhershman.com/about/", but doesn't it seem to be a contradiction, in a time when technology is envisaged as a tool of political repression? People regard Government's attempt (a bit everywhere) to monitor pandemic outbreaks via mobile apps, etc. as privacy invasion; I am also referring to the notion that "Big Brother is watching you". What are your thoughts on this?

Lynn Hershman Leeson: I think we need to use the technologies we have invented in order to survive. It is really up to us whether it is utopian or dystopian.

Porto.: Was it hard to gain artistic projection in the early time of your activity? What were the most difficult times in your career?

Lynn Hershman Leeson: Yes, people would not show my work until I was 73 years old. I had to have several simultaneous jobs to survive while I was raising my daughter. People did not take my work seriously. So most of my life was difficult as an artist.

Porto.: What film would you stand out as the most difficult to direct? (If any?)

Lynn Hershman Leeson: None were difficult, but some were challenging. One producer quit Tecknolust 3 days before we shot it saying he did not have the money he promised we had. I had to figure out how we could make it, shooting in the day, raising money at night. I was limited also with what I could say in Strange Culture because the lead was under a gag order. Every film has its particular story. Most of my films were under funded and that presents their own limitations.