Conceiving Ada

I have to say, I think this is my favorite film so far. I first encountered Tilda Swinton last semester when we watched parts of the film Orlando in the Woolf/Faulkner course. Somehow, she’s no less weird in this movie even though she’s not changing gender.

Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers about this film, specifically because I had a hard time understanding the technology being used. I understood that Ada had written the codes (right word) for what is considered the modern computer, but I don’t understand how Tilda Swinton was able to go back and time and talk to her through the computer screen. I especially don’t understand how her unborn child’s DNA was used, although I do understand that the memories and knowledge of Ada were somehow transplanted into the baby, to be discovered bit by bit as she grows up.
I also didn’t understand a couple sentences from the Kinder reading. She says, “Although Conceiving Ada and Teknolust are digital movies projected on a screen rather than interactive works, whose structure can be altered by users, they still help us conceptualize what is possible for new media technologies particularly concerning the gendering of agency” (171). Which type of media have its structure altered by users? Digital movies projected on screen, is that what we’re used to seeing? That is a typical movie? And what the heck does she mean by “gendering of agency?” That completely threw me.

As a woman I empathized and understood Ada’s feelings of being driven and feeling trapped. As a Lit student, the fact that she was Lord Byron’s illegitimate child only made things more interesting.