Lynn Hershman... Virtual Love & the Twisted Chord... Doors 2
V i r t u a l L o v e
&
Th e T w i s t e d C h o r d
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I n t r o d u c t i o n
Whenever I am fortunate enough to be asked to give a presentation, I think back to the wisdom of Marcel Duchamp who once said: If we are lucky in our lifetime, we will have 3 ideas. When preparing the clips of my works over the past 20 years that I was asked to show you, I tried to determine whether or not I had yet accumulated 3.
I divide my work into two categories, B.C. and A.C., ( before and after computers). In 1979, I had my first, maybe my only A.C. idea. One idea that kept repeating... which is, that we are interactivity linked in the privacy of our homes by means of the television, computer or telephone and that there are enormous implications emerging between the intimate relationships of individuals and technological media systems.
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In
1979 I created an interactive laser art video disk called Lorna. Perhaps it was
a premonition of this conference because it was about interactivity and the
home. Lorna was afraid to leave her home. Why? Because the information she
received through her television kept her in a heightened state of anxiety.
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The
telephone became Lorna's link to the world. Viewer/ participants were able to
voyeuristically overhear conversations or get different contexts by accessing
separate channels as they trespassed the cyberspace of her hard-pressed life.
They were also able to find out about Lorna by accessing objects in her home. Rather than being remotely controlled, the decision unit was placed literally in their own hands. By selecting chapter numbers, they could access short vignettes about Lorna's past and future. There were 3 endings :
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Lorna
shoots her television set
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Lorna
commits suicide
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The
worst one of all: she can move to LA.
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