Born in 1941 in Ohio, Lynn Hershman Leeson was internationally honored with media art awards including the Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and the National Book Award. Her broad artistic practices incorporating painting, sculpture, film, and interactive installations have reflected the relationship between humanity and technology, as well as the social fluidity of the 1970s to 1990s. As a female artist with the experience of being rejected by institutions due to her gender in the early career, most of Hershman Leeson’s work features female figures and parafictional personality that inquire about the stability of the social frame and amplify her female persona.
In 1995 - 1998, Hersman Leeson created a cyborg persona titled The Dollie Clone series, which reflects the paradoxical 90s and the birth of the Internet. It was a liberal yet conservative period when new media artists celebrated the freedom of collaboration and communication online after 1994, but the creation of the internet and consumer webcam has made gender issues more complicated and ambiguous. Aiming to fight violence against women, reclaim derogatory terms and advocate sexual liberation, the daughter of second-wave feminism was born in the early 90s and it somehow foresaw the fate of the feminist movement in the 90s - the more power women claim in the 90s, the more power is taken from them, through commercialized and sexualized pop culture in public spaces and in anonymous chatrooms. The more self-expression, the more lives they share online, the more women are likely to experience cyberbullying that might remodel their self-identity.
Lynn Hershman Leeson explores surveillance and the increasing desire for voyeuring that occurred in the early internet age in The Dollie Clone Series. Dressed in typical fashion clothing, two dolls, “CyberRobeta”, the digital replica of Hershman Leeson’s alter ego, Roberta Breitmore, and “Tillie, Telerobotic Doll”, the evil twin, they became extensions of Hershman Leeson’s body that can remotely gaze at the public. Each doll is installed with a webcam in the right eye and a video camera in the left eye, the right eye webcam allows the visitor to rotate the doll’s head left and right remotely online to survey her surroundings, while the left eye records whatever the doll sees in front of her. To subvert the control from visitors, the doll would sometimes insert abstract images into the video feed. From hacking into the dolls’ vision, to being interrupted by the random images, the viewer would experience unpleasing doubt of autonomy. Through the dolls' eyes, the visitor becomes a partial cyborg who can only observe the world via machines.
The Dollie Clone series implies the aggressive internet culture and irresponsible anonymity began in the 90s. It s no later after the first cloned sheep was created, shocked but also inspired like most humans, Hershman Leeson imagined her fictional persona extendable, “However, the brain could be duplicated into a family of humanoids that could be fleshed out through the Net.” Lynn Hershman Leeson’s replicas doubtlessly represent the most sci-fi-like period of the 90s.