Joan Chen becomes a cyborg philosopher in 14 minutes of pure cinematic brain-melt.
Cyborg #1, a sentient being who adopts the guise of a human through actress Joan Chen, engages in an exercise of self-reflection on her role in history and tells a story: a life, her own, conditioned by the militarized, warmongering context that motivates technological innovation, from encrypted and decrypted underwater communications systems during World War II to the genesis of cyborgs during the Vietnam War.
Direction
Hershman-Leeson weaponizes archival footage like emotional shrapnel.
Acting
Joan Chen's uncanny stillness as synthetic consciousness.
Writing
Dense, poetic narration that rewards close attention.
Director
Lynn Hershman-Leeson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hershman-Leeson pioneered cyberfeminist art since the 1970s; this extends her decades-long obsession with female identity and technological mediation.
The title references Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto'—specifically how rational systems (logic) can deaden emotional response to historical violence.
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