Lynn Hershman

Lynn Hershman is an internationally recognized artist in multiple disciplines and was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Coincidentally, when I decided to search for specific artist who focused on new media and technology, I came upon her video and read more about her work. Hershman has spent 50 years in the arts and graduated with a Bachelor’s from Case Western Reserve University and received an MFA from San Francisco State University.

When she initially decided to go into the art field, she received negative feedback due to her first name and being a woman. She was criticized frequently for this during her early days as an artist but later was able to exhibit nationally and internationally. What drew me to her work is that she is a trailblazer in the fields of arts and technology and, most significantly, her forays into a wide range of topics which provide the audience with engagement, thinking critically, and expanding the possibilities of art and technology. Also, she’s an incredible former Ohio based artist. Several of her topics of interest include: racial profiling, science and technology, artificial intelligence, social media interactions and film making to name a few. Her first major project was collaborating with a friend in the Dante Hotel prior to being able to exhibit her work in museums. She began by creating life like body parts representing women including her face, lips, etc.

In the 1980’s, she taught herself the specifics on how to use a video camera and decided to document her own experiences as an artist. The Electronic Diaries lasted approximately 10 years as she discussed creating her work and her life in the arts. In 1984, she created the project, Lorna, which was the first time an artist had used videodisk technology. What made this experience unique was that visitors had the opportunity to choose how to interact with the project. Lorna, is a “choose your own adventure” story and artistic interaction where viewers were introduced to the main character who is an agoraphobic woman and she is fearful of leaving her one room apartment. Visitors interacted by choosing a specific number on the screen and continued to make further choices as they watched the rest of the footage.

One of her groundbreaking works, Agent Ruby, is based on an interactive website and film focusing on AI in a time where this type of technology was just getting started. This coincidentally seems to represent what ChatGPT and similar software is used for today. For instance, Agent Ruby is a character who used machine learning and artificial Intelligence to gain further knowledge about the world around her, and as she learned more, the audience could ask her questions and she would give specific answers. This in and of itself is incredible since she began this project 20 years ago, well before the massive developments of AI.

Hershman has exhibited her work in an unprecedented number of galleries and museums including: Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, de Young Museum, San Francisco, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, etc. Her latest project is Renaissance 3.0, which involves a combination of art and science into a multidisciplinary approach. The exhibition compares and contrasts the Arab Golden Age, European Renaissance, and finally, the Third Renaissance. Essentially, emphasis is placed on similar tools and techniques that artists and scientists currently use. Previously, the arts and sciences were separate fields as art was seen through the human eye, and science explored elements that can’t always be seen. Hershman, along with numerous other artists, allows for a multi-disciplinary approach to artistic mediums, scientific fields of studies, as well as technology advancement, to make this exhibition possible.

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