Key Operators Film program

Conceiving Ada (1997) by Lynn Hershman Leeson

Friday, June 14
9pm

This September, the comprehensive exhibition and events program Key Operators takes place, exploring the concept of weaving and its significance for the development of computer technology. As a prelude to the project, the 1997 feature film Conceiving Ada by artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson will be screened.

The film delves into the unconventional life of Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace. Better known as Ada Lovelace, she is considered a pioneer of the first computer programming language. Intimate insights into the work and passions of the British mathematician are conveyed by Emmy Coer, a contemporary coder who obsessively engages with the historical figure and manages to establish contact with her idol using the latest technologies. Through the fictional exchange between the two techno-scientists from two different centuries, Hershman Leeson reflects on the gendered stigmatization and restrictions that women are subjected to then and now, and that often relegate them to the sidelines of historiography.