Laura Poitras in Conversation with Lynn Hershman Leeson | PEN America
https://pen.org/interview/laura-poitras-conversation-lynn-hershman-leeson
Long before the digital revolution and virtualization of identities became part of our everyday lives, American artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson created surrogate personas and investigated issues of surveillance, interfacing of humans and technology, and media as a tool to counter censorship and repression.
LP: People have always used encryption. That is one of the goals of encryption, how to communicate privately. I think art is in a kind of different category, because it is communication with the desire to express something more openly. Or perhaps it is communicating some kind of different emotion. It is a translation, or a type of communication that is not based on a set language...
Lynn Hersham Leeson: "her pioneering use of new technologies and her investigations of issues that are now recognized as key to the working of our society: identity in a time of consumerism, privacy in a era of surveillance, interfacing of humans and machines, and the relationship between real and virtual worlds. [source: http://www.furtherfield.org/features/interviews/woman-art-technology-interview-lynn-hershman-leeson]