Project MAMCO Genève, Geneva, Switzerland
Since the 1960s, Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941, Cleveland, OH) has been experimenting with new technologies and the potential of cyborgs, engaging with the issues of gender, privacy, and surveillance. Already in the 1960-70s, she realized wax masks that talked to viewers through audiotapes. How does one become a cyborg? What does it look and feel like to be a technologically modified human? Today, these questions are no longer just for the realm of science-fiction. Lynn Hershman Leeson considers the cyborg as a quintessential reflection of human beings in a technological society.
In her video Seduction of a Cyborg (1994), technology is illustrated as an infectious disease that destroys a woman’s immune system. A blind protagonist agrees to receive physical treatment to restore her eyesight through a computer’s electronic transmission. During the process, she is seduced into a computer-simulated world and gradually becomes addicted to its algorithm. Ultimately, her addiction leads to the manipulation and breakdown of her body.
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