FREE

Join us for a screening of Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Teknolust followed by a discussion led by Helen Hester which will explore the themes of the film in relation to our current exhibition Alter Heroes Coalition.

Released in 2002 and still as relevant as ever, Teknolust is a science fiction film that raises questions about biogenetics, gender and cyber identities. The plot follows scientist Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton), who produces three clones of herself in order to improve the world. Needing periodic injections of the Y chromosome to survive, the androids venture into the real world to seduce men. As the androids grow close to other people, they begin to question what it means to be human. 

Lynn Hershman Leeson is an artist and filmmaker, widely celebrated for her work investigating issues such as the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. Her five feature films – Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, and Tania Libre are all in worldwide distribution and have screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and The Berlin International Film Festival, among others. She was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Prize for writing and directing Teknolust. Her artwork is featured in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Tate Modern, The National Gallery of Canada, and the Walker Art Center among others. 

Helen Hester is Associate Professor of Media and Communication at University of West London. Her research interests include technofeminism, sexuality studies, and theories of social reproduction, and she is a member of the international feminist collective Laboria Cuboniks. Helen is the author of Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex (SUNY Press, 2014) and the co-editor of the collections Fat Sex: New Directions in Theory and Activism (Ashgate, 2015) and Dea ex Machina (Merve, 2015). She is also the series editor for Ashgate’s Sexualities in Society book series.

Free and open to all but please sign up here.

This event is part of our current exhibition, Alter Heroes Coalition, and is supported by Arts Council England.