Lynn Hershman Leeson is an american artist and filmmaker born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1941. She obtained a bachelor’s in Education, Museum Administration and Fine Arts from Case Western Reserve University in 1963 and later went on to obtain her Masters of Fine Art from San Francisco State University in 1972.

 

Most of Leeson’s early work consisted of political commentary on consumerism and our dependence on virtual reality. Many of her works are done through a very unique medium; Interactive video. Leesons first interactive video work is named LORNA. LORNA is the story of an agoraphobic woman living in a one bedroom apartment, and viewers get the opportunity to interact and change the woman's actions.

 

This bridged into one of Leeson’s most famous works, Agent Ruby. Agent Ruby is an interactive website which allows you to converse with an artificial intelligence named Ruby. These interactions shape Ruby’s memory, knowledge and moods. In 2013 (12 years after Ruby’s creation) SFMOMA released “The Agent Ruby Files” a collection of text files recording Ruby’s conversations with users and reflecting on recurring themes in conversation and patterns of engagement.

 

Leeson is also involved in film art, even winning a sundance film festival prize at one point. This is where she made her largest impact on feminism, with her film !Women Art Revolution! A feature length piece highlighting the feminist art movement in the united states over the past 40 years and included interviews with prominent feminist artists. This film itself received official selection at Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.