[spectre] Wtrlt: [CAS] Lynn Hershman Leeson receives [ddaa] 2010 - press release

[Oliver Grau]

>>> Paul Brown <paul at PAUL-BROWN.COM> 7/11/2010 2:44 AM >>> 
Press release

Lynn Hershman Leeson receives the 2010 d.velop digital art award
[ddaa]
 
Berlin, Germany*American artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson
has been awarded the 2010 d.velop digital art award [ddaa]. Given
biannually by the Digital Art Museum [DAM], Berlin, Germany. This
international prize honours an artist*s lifetime achievement in the
field of new media. In addition to receiving a monetary award (20,000
Euro), Hershman Leeson will have a retrospective exhibition accompanied
by a catalogue at the Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany. The [ddaa] is the
most import prestigious lifetime award to be given to artists in digital
arts. 

Lynn Hershman Leeson is the fourth artist to win the prestigious
[ddaa]. This year*s jury included Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath
(Director of Kunsthalle Bremen), Dr. Norbert Nobis (Deputy Director of
the Sprengel Museum in Hanover), Kelli Dipple (Curator Intermedia Art,
Tate Modern, London), Stephen Kovats (Artistic Director of Transmediale,
Berlin) and Wolf Lieser (Director of the Digital Art Museum [DAM],
Berlin). Past winners are Vera Molnar (Hungary/France, 2005), Manfred
Mohr (Germany/USA, 2006) and Norman White (Canada, 2008).

Lynn Hershman Leeson (* 1941) utilizes new media since the 1970s as a
cutting-edge artist. She has been devoted to social issues of
contemporary society: protection of privacy, gender role, the changing
concept of identity in the the age of virtualty. Very often, she acts as
a storyteller ina non-linear way by showing the loneliness of people in
a world of mass communication systems. She works with an alter ego,
puppets and agents and includes artificial intelligence. As a pioneer of
interactive work her oeuvre includes performance, film, photography,
site-specific installations and digital media. One of Hershman
Leeson*s most notorious projects includes Roberta Breitmore, a
fictional persona, created and enacted by the artist from 1973 * 79,
and which anticipated virtual avatars.  Hershman Leeson has been
responsible for a number of technological innovations, including the
first interactive computer-based artwork with Lorna (1983-84) and the
artificial intelligent web agent DiNa (2006).

Her three feature films with Tilda Swinton * Conceiving Ada (1997),
the first movie to use virtual sets; Teknolust (2002); and Strange
Culture (2007) * were shown at the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto
International Film Festival, and Berlin International Film Festival, and
won numerous awards. Hershman Leeson has just completed !Women Art
Revolution, a feature-length documentary to be released next year.

Hershman Leeson*s work is featured in the public collections of the
Museum of Modern Art, New York, the William Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg,
the ZKM (Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe), The Whitworth Art Gallery,
Manchester, The Tate, London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the
National Gallery in Canada, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and The
Hess Collection, California, among others.

Most recently, Hershman Leeson received the 2009 SIGGRAPH Lifetime
Achievement Award and a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. She is also the
recipient of grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, Creative
Capital Foundation, the Siemens Media Art Prize, ZKM, the Flintridge
Foundation Award, the Prix Ars Electronica and the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation. In 2004, Stanford University acquired the artists working
archive.

Lynn Hershman Leeson is Chair of the Film Department at the San
Francisco Art Institute and Emeritus Professor at the University of
California, Davis. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Lynn Hersman Leeson was nominated by Laura Sillars of FACT, Liverpool.
Further nominees were Roy Ascott (nominated by Rudolf Frieling, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art), Hiroshi Kawano (nominated by Yoshiyuki
Abe, pioneer of computer art from Japan), Lillian F. Schwartz (nominated
by Barbara London (Museum of Modern Art in New York) and Roman Verostko
(nominated by Douglas Dodds, Victoria & Albert Museum in London). 

Initiated in 2005 by Wolf Lieser of the Digital Art Museum [DAM], the
d.velop digital art award [ddaa] is assigned in close partnership with
Kunsthalle Bremen, and is possible through the sponsoring of d.velop AG
in Gescher, the Hauptpharma AG in Berlin as well as by the agency
kommunikation lohnzich in Munster, Germany.


For further information as well as press images visit
www.ddaa-online.org or www.dam.org
or contact:
Susanne Lieser
Gallery [DAM]Berlin/Cologne
Tucholskystr. 37 
10117 Berlin 
Germany
Phone: +49 30 280 98 135   
Mobile: +49 178 529 50 99
Email: s.lieser at dam.org


                 

1. Lynn Hershman Leeson, Roberta Breitmore Series, Roberta Construction
Chart #1, 1975, dye transfer print, courtesy Lynn Hershman Leeson
2. Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lorna, 1983*1984,interactive computer based
installation with video, screen, remote, furniture, DVD, courtesy Lynn
Hershman Leeson
3. Lynn Hershman Leeson, Reach, 1988, from the Phantom Limb series,
gelatin silver print, edition of 8 (61 x 51 cm or 102 x 76 cm), courtesy
Lynn Hershman Leeson
4. Lynn Hershman Leeson, CybeRoberta, 1995*1998 from the Dollie
Clones series, installation with doll, miniature replica clothing and
accessories, video camera, web cam, internet connection, custom
software, courtesy Lynn Hershman Leeson
5. Lynn Hershman Leeson, Teknolust, 2002, feature-length film, written
and directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson,  85 minutes, courtesy Lynn
Hershman Leeson
6. Lynn Hershman Leeson, DiNA, 2004*2005, a networked artificial
intelligence system with voice recognition; courtesy Lynn Hershman
Leeson

-- 
Digital Art Museum [DAM] 
www.dam.org
Part of DAM Projects GmbH
Home of the d.velop digital art award [ddaa]
Location of the company: Tucholskystr. 37 D-10117 Berlin
GF Wolfgang Lieser HRB 90873 Charlottenburg DE 161744610
Fon: +49 30 280 98 135 
museum at dam.org

====
Paul Brown - based in OZ April to November 2010
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Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====