artist lynn hershman leeson on the algorithms underpinning society, befriending paintings, and more
camera roll with artist lynn hershman leeson
When she’s not in her studio, artist Lynn Hershman Leeson can be spotted on a walk through her neighborhood or a nearby park in San Fransisco, or visiting an exhibition at a museum. She spent a lot of time at museums when she was a kid, which fostered her development as an artist. Her artistic investigations of technology have earned her a reputation as the Cassandra of the art world, always ahead of her time. We spoke with Lynn about using her phone to find unexpected connections to fuel her art, befriending paintings, the algorithms underpinning society, and more.
Lynn’s art is notable for, among other things, its remarkable prescience when it comes to our relationships with technology. In her own words:
I can’t predict the future, but I live in San Francisco and I was attuned to what was happening here where all this tech development takes place and all this software is written. I expected all of it but no one expected me to be right.
My work from the past several decades feels relevant now but when I make things nobody understands them and they don't want to show them and nobody buys them. Then 30 years later they say, oh that was really prescient. But at the time, people can't relate to the work. It's frustrating because I can't sell them and rarely show them. I remember when I did Agent Ruby, I showed it once in New York, but nobody understood it.
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