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Trailers: Lynn Hershman Leeson x3

Jun 22, 2021

Tilda Swinton in Teknolust

We're thrilled to announce that the Film/Video Theater is reopening! The latest info on COVID-19 protocols at the Wex can be found here.

You're invited to join us again for in-person screenings beginning Friday, July 9 with the launch of a three-film retrospective of the work of Lynn Hershman Leeson. The acclaimed Cleveland-born artist and filmmaker has devoted much of her five-decade career to exploring the intersections between art, technology, and our shared humanity, as evidenced in the three features selected for this program: 1997's Conceiving Ada, 2003's Teknolust, and 2009's Strange Culture, each starring Tilda Swinton. A free virtual conversation between Leeson and Kris Paulsen, artist and associate professor in Ohio State's Department of History of Art, is also scheduled for July 22.

Check out the trailers below for what's coming. As a bonus, here's a new interview with the artist recorded for Art21 in anticipation of Twisted, her solo exhibition at New York City's New Museum that opens June 30.

Conceiving Ada, screening July 9–10

“A film without category or precedent. A meditation on memory, feminism, immortality and the horizons of virtual reality, it's got enough ideas and intellectual fodder for a dozen films.” –San Francisco Chronicle

Computer scientist Emmy Coer (Francesca Faridany) is obsessed with Countess Ada Lovelace (Swinton), the only daughter of Lord and Lady Byron who died of cancer in 1852 at the age of 36 and who was a mathematician credited with writing the first computer algorithm. Emmy develops the technology to communicate with the past and begins an intimate conversation with Ada about their lives and careers as women scientists.

 

Teknolust, screening July 16–17

“Brilliant –the hippest cyber-fi film ever!”—B. Ruby Rich

In Teknolust, Swinton plays Rosetta Stone, a geneticist who creates a formula that allows her to place her DNA into her own cyborg creations. She successfully breeds three Self Replicating Automatons, or S.R.A.s, that look human (and exactly like Swinton) but are in fact part machine. Needing male chromosomes to survive, the oldest clone goes out into the world to collect sperm, but unwittingly leaves the “donors” with unintended consequences. 

 

Strange Culture, screening July 23–24

“Alternately teasing and terrifying, Strange Culture is a near-perfect alignment of subject and form. In its creative assessment of our current judicial climate, the need for artistic freedom has seldom seemed so urgent.” —New York Times

This hybrid documentary examines the case of Steve Kurtz, an artist/activist who was charged as a bioterrorist by the federal government after a makeshift lab with biological specimens was discovered in his home (he was never indicted). Hershman uses actors (Thomas Jay Ryan as Kurtz and Swinton as his deceased wife, Hope) to discuss the case as Kurtz was legally prevented from doing so at the time. 

Top of page: Teknolust, image courtesy of Strand Releasing

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