Logic Paralyzes the Heart, 2022

Hershman Leeson’s Logic Paralyzes the Heart follows a cyborg (played by actor/filmmaker Joan Chen) who has just turned sixty-one. Her birth year, 1960, is when the term “cyborg” was coined to describe the human enhancements that enable extraterrestrial survival and travel. In this film, the cyborg details the history of cyborgian technology, from its early intention as a tool for human liberation to the ways in which this technology has produced a break between ethical human advancement and exploitation. She ultimately meets her human avatar, and the pair meditate on the current troubled relationship between humans and their world, the climate and extinction crises, and the potential for future evolution and change. The artist asks, how can we transform weapons into tools of survival?

Lynn Hershman Leeson is internationally acclaimed for her art and films and is recognized for innovative work that investigates issues including identity, surveillance and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. Her practice includes producing one of the first interactive video art discs, an artificially intelligent web agent and coding her work into DNA. Awards include: Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and Honorary Doctorate from Pratt. Her work is in The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Tate Modern and other private and public collections.