Early Image Processing and Computer Animation in Colorado: Pat Lehman’s Video Vitae in Context

In 1975, Pat Lehman screened her experimental video, Video Vitae at the New York Women’s Video Festival. Lehman worked in Colorado, where she also started the first video program in the state’s college system. This paper examines Video Vitae as an example of image-processed video and early computer animation in the context of second-wave feminism. The author charts Lehman’s influences and access to the Scanimate computer used to produce Video Vitae, arguing that the significance of Lehman’s feminist narrative and the technology were deeply intertwined. Such explicit feminist narratives were extremely rare among artists engaged in early image-processing and animation.