The Presence Project

Lynn Hershman Leeson: Autonomous Agents

A Real + Second Life Symposium

Saturday 24 November 2007, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester + Second Life, 1.00pm – 5.00pm GMT

A Real + Second Life Symposium, a collaboration between The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester and The Presence Project, coincides with the major retrospective exhibition Autonomous Agents: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson. The Guardian’s preview of the show spoke of Hershman as an artist for whom the creation of self-identity is less a vain game than a matter of profound political import’.

Working in performance, installation, video and film, new media and technology, Lynn Hershman Leeson has explored identity, politics, surveillance and artificial intelligence, operating at the vanguard of artistic innovation from the 1960s onwards.

A Real + Second Life Symposium considers the accumulation of Hershman Leeson’s practice and its habitation within live space, cinematic space, the buildings of museums and galleries and most recently, the virtual space of Second Life.

Through 20 minute long presentations, a range of academics and artists will talk about Hershman Leeson’s practice, as well as identity, politics, surveillance and artificial intelligence. Confirmed speakers include Prof Gabriella Giannachi (Centre for Intermedia, Exeter University), Prof Amelia Jones (University of Manchester), Prof Nick Kaye (Centre for Intermedia, Exeter University) Prof. Michael Shanks (Faculty Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center, California) and Prof. Jackie Stacey (University of Manchester) as well as the artist herself - Lynn Hershman Leeson.

This free symposium will take place in real life in The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester on Saturday 24 November 2007 1.00pm – 5.00pm GMT and on the same day in Second Life at 3.30pm – 4.30pm GMT. Contact susan.fletcher@manchester.ac.uk for Second Life location.

Autonomous Agents, A Real + Second Life Symposium is in collaboration with The Performing Presence Project, a four-year partnership between University of Exeter, Stanford University and University College London funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK and with the support of Stanford Humanities Lab, California. Performing Presence is available at: http://presence.stanford.edu/

Booking

To book a place at this free symposium please call Sue Fletcher on 0161 275 7472 (Mon, Wed & Thurs) or email susan.fletcher@manchester.ac.uk

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Through 2007-8 The Presence Project will be closely following the development of The Builders Association's current project, CONTINUOUS CITY.

CONTINUOUS CITY: Excerpts from a work-in-progress by The Builders Association, UC Berkeley, October 5-14, 2007

Our extensive documentation of this process will be developed on the Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1187

Initiated in a series of company workshops at the Krannert Centre and the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in July 2007, CONTINUOUS CITY will be developed throughout the next year toward opening performances in Autumn 2008.

CONTINUOUS CITY: Excerpts from a work-in-progress by The Builders Association, UC Berkeley, October 5-14, 2007

Engaging with the impact of network technologies on the nature and sense of contemporary place, the company write that:

CONTINUOUS CITY is a mediation on how contemporary experiences of location and dislocation stretch us to the maximum as our "networked selves" occupy multiple locations. Globally, we are at a watershed moment where, for the first time, more people are living in cities than in rural environments. From the megacities of the developing world to the gated communities of the U.S., our new production looks at the sense of 'place' within a global context, and how electronic connection contributes to and complicates that sense of place.

CONTINUOUS CITY also explores these networked architectures through a website created as a performance space where members of the public may participate in the project by joining a chorus, entering into dialogue with characters and uploading images, all of which may be added to the theatrical production. Uploaded material may also be viewed from the site. Visit http://continuouscity.org/ to explore and participate in this part of the project.

CONTINUOUS CITY: Excerpts from a work-in-progress by The Builders Association,
UC Berkeley, October 5-14, 2007

Ranging from extracts from Marianne Weems' preparatory notebooks to interviews at key moments with company members to analyses and accounts of working processes and outcomes, this documentation will form a unique dialogue between The Presence Project and the evolution of a major theatrical work.

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