Correcting the Code — Chapter One: Before the Canon
The early history of digital art is usually told through machines, technological breakthroughs and largely male institutional infrastructures. This first chapter of Correcting the Code turns to the practitioners that history overlooks: feminist and gender-marginalised artists who, from the 1960s onward, worked with computation, video, systems and cybernetics — often without ready access to the equipment, laboratories, exhibitions and archives that shaped the field.
The conversation considers the material and institutional conditions under which these practices emerged: who was granted access to technology and who was not, how the resulting works were documented and preserved, and why they remain so unevenly represented in the institutional history of digital art.
Rebecca Allen and Lynn Hershman Leeson, whose practices span the early decades of computer-based art, are joined by Sabine Himmelsbach, director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) Basel, who works on the collecting and preservation of digital art. The panel connects artistic practice with the question of how institutions build, and revise, a canon.
Allen and Hershman Leeson join the conversation online. You can attend on-site in Zurich or online via Zoom. All are welcome.
Participants
Rebecca Allen is an artist and a pioneer of real-time 3D computer graphics, based in Los Angeles. Working with computer animation since the 1970s, she has explored the representation of the human body, motion and perception through digital means, at a time when access to such technology was largely confined to research laboratories. Her early works are held in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and have recently been shown in Electric Dreams at Tate Modern, London.
Lynn Hershman Leeson is an artist and filmmaker based in San Francisco and New York, and among the pioneers of interactive and media-based art. Since the late 1960s she has worked across photography, video, film, electronic environments, net art and artificial intelligence. Her works include the long-term performance Roberta Breitmore (1973–1978), the interactive installation Lorna (1979–1984) and the AI-based web work Agent Ruby (1998–2002), alongside feature films and the documentary !Women Art Revolution.
Sabine Himmelsbach is an art historian and director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel, Switzerland's centre of competence for art engaging with new technologies. Her work focuses on the exhibition, collection and preservation of digital art.
Dr Jeni Fulton (moderation) is a researcher and lecturer at Zurich University of the Arts and the University of Zurich. She conceived and curated Art Basel's Digital Dialogues talks series from 2024-2026.
About the programme
Correcting the Code: Women, Gender, Technology and the Transformation of Digital Art is a public programme of exchange events, performative activations and workshops, organised by Marie-France Rafael, Jeni Fulton, Asya Yaghmurian and Sabine Himmelsbach. A co-production of HEK (Haus der Elektronischen Künste), Basel, and the Institute for Contemporary Art Research (IfCAR), Zurich University of the Arts. Supported by Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council. Runtime 2026/2027.
