April 18, 1995 Dear Arts Journalist: For years, leading artists have taught at the University of California, Davis: Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri ... The tradition continues but, as with changes in the art world, the medium is changing -- to video art, now taught and practiced at UC Davis by Lynn Hershman, video artist and professor of electronic art who lives in the Bay Area. Hershman is setting up an electronic arts laboratory in the UC Davis art department. Known as the "I.D.E.A. Lab" -- the Inter-Disciplinary Electronics Arts Lab -- it is devoted to newly emerging technological developments in the arts such as photography, video, interactivity, digital editing, CD-ROM mastering, Internet projects and site-specific installations. The lab offers students the chance to create "electronically based dialogues between communities, cultures, virtual spaces and social contexts," according to Hershman. Students studying video art with Hershman are taking lessons from one of the "veteran" American video artists. Hershman has spent the past 30 years working with various media, including photography, public art and video. She is considered the first artist to create an interactive art videodisk, "Lorna" in 1979-83. In 1994, she was the first woman to receive a tribute and retrospective at the San Francisco International Film Festival. She recently received the Annie Gerber Award, a $50,000 commission from the Seattle Art Museum. Her work is included in many collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and the Hess Collection. Her newest award will be bestowed next month in Karlsruhe, Germany, when she will receive the international Siemens/ZKM Media Arts Prize. Previous U.S. winners include Bill Viola and William Burroughs. Other 1995 recipients to receive the prize will include Peter Greenaway, Jean Baudrillard and Eckart Stein. The award will be presented on May 13 in Karlsruhe, Germany. Hershman was selected for the prize, according to ZKM (Center for Arts and Media Technology), because "she is regarded as the most influential female artist of new media. As early as the 1970s, she worked with context, performance, public space and interactivity. Her video work incorporates surveillance, voyeurism and personal identity and her computer installations expand the possibilities of interactivity in art." If you would like to interview Hershman for a story about her new electronic arts program at UC Davis or her award, please contact Hershman at (916) 752-3220 or (415) 567-6180, or at lynn2@well.com. If you need to contact me, I can be reached at (916) 752-9841, or lrklionsky@ucdavis.edu. Sincerely, Lisa Crumrine Klionsky UC Davis News Service