ROBERTA Breitmore is not a real person, but her picture is hanging in Whitworth Art Gallery alongside her bank account details and driver's licence.

Roberta has even got a beauty regime, a record of the dates she went on and bills for the visits she made to a psychoanalyst.

But she is just a fictional character created by legendary Ohio artist Lynn Hershman Leeson in 1974 and brought to life for years as an alias adopted by many other women.

She was the first of Lynn's spate of interactive artworks created to illustrate the way women interact with society and are shaped by it.

Lorna followed in the 1980s, the first interactive video art disc which allowed women to make choices for the agoraphobic protagonist, while Synthia, Stock Ticker and Agent Ruby followed - the former reflecting stock market changes in her altering mood, the latter an online presence that learned from its users.

The Whitworth exhibition, entitled Autonomous Art, is a UK premiere for Hershman Leeson's work, despite worldwide critical acclaim and a host of prestigious awards, including the Siemens-Medienkunstpreis (Siemens Media Arts Prize) and the Golden Nica - one of the most prestigious awards in electronic and interactive art.

Although she is best known for her interactive work, Lynn's Manchester installation also incorporates paintings, photography and film, as well as complex interactive robotic and artificial intelligence works.

"Autonomous Art provides a fascinating, thought provoking and wide ranging reassessment of Lynn Hershman Leeson's contributions to contemporary art, feminist theory and emerging technologies," says a spokesman for the gallery.

Autonomous Art is at Whitworth Art Gallery from tomorrow until December 12. Free.

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