Lynn Hershman: Conceiving Ada

Lynn Hershman: Conceiving Ada, 1998, 88 min., 35mm.

The film Conceiving Ada combines the themes of love, sex, artificial life, computers, DNA transfer, history and memory. Tilda Swinton (Orlando) delivers a brilliant performance of mathematician Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, who is said to have written the first computer program. According to Charles Babbage in The Enchantress of Numbers, Ada predicted not only the possibilities of artificial life, but also the digital revolution that occurred 144 years after her death.