Commercial for Myself

Commercial for Myself is a hybrid self-portrait that combines advertising, performance, and technological criticism. In a fake television commercial, Lynn Hershman Leeson appears as a “talking head” replacing herself to promote the simulated female identity Roberta Breitmore, a character the artist developed in the 1970s. Aired on public television, the film reflects on the human impact of the then-emerging digital age and invites the audience to respond with what they consider to be the “most human values.” A pioneer since the 1960s, Hershman Leeson uses the medium of television itself as a space for performance and critical questioning of the relationships between technology, identity, and gender.