Thirty-five years after its creation, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s seminal video is as poignant as ever

It is an uncanny foreshadowing, or perhaps a savvy prediction, that the subjects in Lynn Hershman Leeson’s works were addicted to their screens long before we were. Embracing a multitude of mediums, Hershman Leeson touched on immersive videos and artificial intelligence before they became an all-consuming, unsettling presence in our daily reality.

The blurred lines between these new medias fascinate Hershman Leeson, who drew on the shady borders between wanting and needing in 1990’s video work, ‘Desire Inc.,’ now on show at Margate’s 243 Luz gallery.

Aired originally on late night television, purposefully eschewing any context, the work is part reality, part fiction, putting the focus on an attractive woman who looks straight into the camera, asking viewers to call her. Both these adverts, and the response to them, were combined into a video which pulls the viewer into the artwork in a play on consumer relationships.

‘When I was creating this work, it was my challenge to find a way to respond to the present, to include things in an ad that people hoped for or were secretly thinking about. That's what advertising does,’ Hershman Leeson points out. ‘The landscape now is so filled with trivia that subtle or deep work gets buried. One needs to search for them and be aware when they occur.’

Thirty-five years after it was made, the work is as prescient as ever, capturing the moment before a shift which saw television concede its power to the internet. Most poignantly, the work captures a desire for intimacy and connection, giving it the power to still resonate so deeply now. ‘It surprises me that people continue to show this work so long after it was originally conceived,’ Hershman Leeson adds. ‘But I am very grateful that this happened.’

'Desire Inc' at 243 Luz until August 30