[Image: Teknolust, 2002, Lynn Hershman Leeson. Production still from 35mm feature film, courtesy the artist, Gallery Paule Anglim, SF, and bitforms gallery, NY] Lynn Hershman Leeson: Autonomous Agents - A Real + Second Life Symposium :: November 24, 2007; 1.00 - 5.00 pm :: The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK :: Second Life at 3.30 - 4.30 pm GMT. Contact susan.fletcher [at] manchester.ac.uk for Second Life location.

Lynn Hershman Leeson: A Real + Second Life Symposium 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. Autonomous Agents, 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 (Exeter University), Prof Amelia Jones (University of Manchester) and Prof Nick Kaye (Exeter University) as well as the artist herself - Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Autonomous Agents, A Real + Second Life Symposium is in collaboration with The Performing Presence Project, a four-year partnership between the 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.