![\"LobstaSummit\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/MG_2802.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLobstaGirl: It\u2019s all Good. So we all have this tendency to sort of mix art and life a little bit, right? Perform and kind of get people involved in our performances right and sometimes we can get little crushes on them\u2026 sometimes it\u2019s a little different kind of attraction, right? You might not necessarily want to do anything else with them but then sometimes there are people that you want to have both with, right?<\/p>\n
Cristal: Well you can certainly learn a great deal, it can enrich your art practice and also it\u2019s honest \u2013 it\u2019s what comes from a very daily relationship with the people you are performing with.<\/p>\n
Diamond: It has a therapeutic value. It\u2019s like a ritual. Interacting in a freeform way with other people\u2026 wait what is performance art? I don\u2019t know that I\u2019m am necessarily interested in identifying the \u201ctrends\u201d of performance art. I know what we\u2019re doing and some of our friends and I know that performance art is popular but what the fuck is going on?<\/p>\n
LobstaGirl: I don\u2019t get a chance to go see that much of it either. I do see some but I\u2019m not like seeking it out. In terms of my own work if I try to just keep it to the videos it\u2019s no good. It\u2019s like I need that live experience because I\u2019m getting energy from the audience. It pushes me to react very quickly to whatever is going on around me. In a video that\u2019s also true but it\u2019s sort of like you\u2019re performing for the technology, that becomes built into the work. I spend like 2 or 3 months preparing before I do a video shoot. Sometimes the people are coming in for a fitting and what not. Some people don\u2019t like that. It\u2019s not always true but the tendency has been more of my female performers have come in for fittings. I think as women we want the clothes to fit our bodies a certain way, we want them to amplify our bodies. I don\u2019t want to take up too much of their time but then I\u2019ve noticed that some people just want to delve in more.<\/p>\n
Cristal: And you don\u2019t just want to tell them what to do because then you don\u2019t learn from the collaboration. What they bring is their own and it definitely helps you to transform your work and move forward.<\/p>\n
LobstaGirl: I might get interested in a person to work with and sometimes they do shape their own character. I start to mold and shape my idea towards the conversations we have had. I try to have an overall structure that\u2019s pretty sound that I\u2019m developing over a period of months and then I\u2019m allowing for a lot of chance and a lot of input throughout that process. I just wrote a script for a project that I\u2019m going to shoot this summer and I\u2019ve really had to see what part of that script, the plan rather (it\u2019s not a script with dialogue and I will be very improvisational) was going on in my head. It\u2019s a story around an asexual romance. All of the sexuality is happening within those people as flashbacks, dreams and imagination. Every time that they see each other one of those things gets triggered in their mind. It will involve a lot of fading into dreamy sequences. I\u2019m using my own real memories, fantasies and flashbacks. What\u2019s interesting is I have a male lead I\u2019m basing on a real person and a real relationship in my life and so my relationship to that character keeps changing. Life keeps changing and you learn different things about what it is that\u2019s concerning you in a relationship. Like what was bothering me was having a feeling of romance that was asexual\u2026 and yet it\u2019s become very romantic and intimate now too. It has brought a lot of things up in my mind that might not have come up otherwise. The whole other series has been like lobsta pornos and it\u2019s very sexualized and this one will have a lot of sexualized moments but it\u2019s sort of dealing more deeply with sexuality and how it operates in your mind and how certain things can get triggered.<\/p>\n
Cristal: It\u2019s almost like a shift for you – approaching your work from a totally different place. It might be interesting for viewers that are familiar to your work. It\u2019s also so relevant to our times when everything is so sexualized.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: In this piece one of the flashbacks is when I was twelve I was molested by a cop. He chased me down into the basement. We were having a pool party and my mom was in charge of the ambulance service for the town so they had a lot of friends that were cops and fireman and ambulance people. He was over at the house and he chased me down to the basement and he straddled me and started tickling me. I was so ticklish that I started bashing my own head on the ground really hard because I didn\u2019t want to be tickled. Then he took a Poppa Smurf doll and he shoved it into my mouth so I wouldn\u2019t scream. I can\u2019t recall everything after that and I always wondered how much more happened. That\u2019s going to be one of the scenes that I\u2019m delving into. What\u2019s interesting is that when I have a high level of trust with somebody who I\u2019m role playing around with in my artwork or in terms of sex I like to be a little submissive. I like to have that kind of play going on in sex. I think that for a lot of people there are connections between weird past memories. It\u2019s about wanting to explore my own psychology and other people\u2019s psychology through situations both real and imagined. I often find when people are confronted with sexual images some people are shut down to it. There\u2019s been people who have not wanted to deal with my work or who have been threatened by it or who have laughed it off. You know they want to put it in a box somehow and put it away because they don\u2019t want to deal with it. For this piece that I\u2019m working on it\u2019s very important for me that I just try to deal with these complexities. I\u2019m not really just a comedian and I never have been. Some people read my work in a comedic way but there\u2019s a lot of layers in there and there always have been. I\u2019m just trying to make that more implicit in my work so that it\u2019s not being overlooked in a way. Even if people don\u2019t want to look at it or don\u2019t want to deal with the things I\u2019m bringing up I would prefer to have that distaste in my work be kind of serious. I always wanted to be really positive and I think that\u2019s where comedy has entered into my work. I wanted it to feel light enough that people could enter the work. I don\u2019t think this new work will be too dark for people to handle although there will be a little more darkness to it and there will also be a little more romance to it. It will also talk more about disconnect – our connection and our disconnect. Let\u2019s call it more like unrequited love and sort of\u2026<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s super mental!<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: It\u2019s super mental.<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s obsessive-compulsive, I mean that\u2019s what I do. Let\u2019s start thinking about those weird tics in the context of queer too or non-normative practices within the context of performance art and life. We\u2019re exploding the whole definition of queer for instance when you bring up like Lobstasex\u2026<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: I read an article today that was really interesting about a movement to stop identifying s&m as a kind of pathology. What was ironic was that the article was written by a sex therapist who helps people with sex addiction. Working with all of her clients she came to accept different meanings of what s&m could be. I have started thinking a lot about this idea of surrender. Like in yoga you\u2019re surrendering to your body you\u2019re breathing into your pain or center, right? I feel like sometimes in particularly awesome sex situations you have that same feeling of surrender.<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s a release.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: This person is physically dominating me a bit and I don\u2019t have the control of the situation. I like it when I know we\u2019re playing around I don\u2019t like it when a person is just taking me for granted. You play that game and I love that feeling. The article is saying basically we\u2019re in this society which is all about control and a lot of people are into being submissive. The highest level of submissives are usually high-powered business people – very smart, very intelligent people. They have to keep it together in their lives and they want to have a different feeling for a second, they want to surrender. If you are a leader you can\u2019t surrender. I can\u2019t even learn if I don\u2019t think the teacher is smart in a yoga class, I will leave. I have to be able to respect the teacher to even surrender to them. I just look at these things as being rather connected and if you break things down that way we all have much more in common than people want to think. One of the reasons why I identify with being queer is I know one thing – I\u2019m not normative. The pressure to be normative as a female is vast. I\u2019m a really good person. I\u2019m a really highly spiritual person, but you know I\u2019m multidimensional and I don\u2019t want to be put in a really limited position. I don\u2019t really even want to be with one person. I really feel more polyamorous in spirit. I don\u2019t want to have a family and a lifestyle that is normative. I don\u2019t want to participate in that. I am really just all about more forms of openness because we can get really shut down as adults and loose a sense of play. I feel sexuality is a huge playground. So many ideas and so much creativity can be generated from ideas surrounding sex, for me it\u2019s a hugely fertile ground and a positive life generating experience. Negative things can happen in that space but it\u2019s meant to be enjoyed.<\/p>\n Diamond: Recently at NYU in the performance studies dept. they had a panel featuring performances artists whose work has been censored including Karen Finely, Ann Liv Young and Tobaron Waxman. What emerged in the dialogue was essentially that within the U.S. the issue with censorship is always sex whereas in Europe and anywhere else in the world it\u2019s a political thing. You can say whatever you want here. You can say \u201ckill the president\u201d but if you show underwear, if you show pubic hair \u2013 all these mundane things really push people\u2019s hot buttons in terms of public performance art, particularly when it is being publicly funded. Karen Finely spoke and said when she came under public scrutiny and censorship due to her NEA Grant it ruined her life. The Whitney cancelled her show without apology because they were afraid of the government coming down on them. She was considered a sexual deviant for spreading food on her naked body, it wasn\u2019t even that crazy – not for today\u2019s world. But at that time in the 90s it became really hard for her to find work, her whole livelihood was threatened.<\/p>\n Cristal: It just seems so absurd here in American, which is like the most sexualized culture.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Like Lady Gaga being all sexualized is okay because it\u2019s celebrity culture. At that level of commerce sexuality is so mainstreamed and money driven. Case in point I was performing as a \u201cMissile Dick Chick\u201d back in the Bush years one day in Times Square. Every week we would say \u201cThursday night Times Square be there if you can.\u201d We would rehearse live, just show up wherever. Just three of us were performing that night and there were these people shooting an underwear commercial nearby. They were like totally half naked models and we were getting pushed out because there was a lot of money going into that shoot. There was nothing wrong with being half naked it was that we were wearing 2.5 foot-long strap on missiles and huge red and white war chests. I mean it was obvious that it was like this cross-over but like a lot of times we had the feeling that it was because we were chicks with dicks. The rest of our costume if people saw us from the waist up even the cops they wanted pictures with us, they would hug us and then they would look down and be like WHOA! That\u2019s very interesting to me like very femme up top and then you know we had the dick so \u2026 you know? At the same time I feel like today I\u2019m more interested in taunting the art world. I see the art world as very conservative and feel it\u2019s the place I need to be. Another time I was working with a man in one of my videos who was a little more indie-oriented. He was really game to do whatever and I made him one of my costumes. I only told him that he might be the Marquis de Sade and then when he got to the set I had made these giant cheetah print dicks. There was a space inside the dick that I put spray can whip cream so he could like spray us down with the whip cream. I gave him a whole arsenal of things that he could kind of like torture us with. He really loved wearing that costume although I went through some reluctance with him too because he kept wanting to show the video in less formal situations. I wanted to really focus on showing it in more formal situations because I feel like if I were to show that video at a party it could just seem like entertainment. I didn\u2019t feel like it was made for entertainment. We were performing an orgy. Irvin Morazan had 8 dicks. We all had these crazy costumes. I think people think they have one sexual persona and then something else happens on camera. If they\u2019re very confident – bravado totally comes across. It\u2019s almost like a first date in a way you see your own limitations you see their limitations and you also see what can open up. It\u2019s been interesting to maintain different friendships with the people who\u2019ve been in my pieces, I\u2019m sure you guy share that too\u2026<\/p>\n Cristal: Definitely \u2013 you get to meet each other in a different way and then it\u2019s kind of something special you carry on your relationship with them and it\u2019s very rich for both parties.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: I could never just sit in my studio again.<\/p>\n Cristal: It\u2019s definitely something that activates the work in a different way. The two need not be exclusive, both things feed each other.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: One time someone said \u201cOh I\u2019ll be in your lobsta porn but I\u2019m not wearing not just 2 dicks I want 4 and one long enough to strangle you with.\u201d So I starting making that thing for him. The costumes you two are wearing they were for my Lobsta doulas. They helped assist Lobsta Pussy when I gave birth to my Lobsta baby. This one was Collette\u2019s lingerie that I changed into her costume and that one I made from scratch. Those ladies were totally invested they studied how to be doulas and they brought their vibrator and they gave me orgasmic birth in the butter bath. They were fucking righteous bisexual women in their twenties, I love that. It took me forever to figure shit out in my twenties, I was just experimenting with all kinds of shit and not really knowing where I was going with it.<\/p>\n Diamond: Creatively?<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Sexually. I really was just like off the wall. Then I sort of just shifted into a more work-a-holic mode and then I shifted in to this art world thing. It\u2019s just more gratifying to me. It\u2019s like I want to hang out with the BIG BOYS (or ladies). There\u2019s just something about harpooning an abstract painter. Although I don\u2019t like that the Art world can be so boring. I used to think of it as \u201cold school\u201d to be making interesting work. I\u2019m glad you guys think it\u2019s cool to be interesting too, it\u2019s not just old school\u2026<\/p>\n Diamond: Like having your work be super layered and really saying something, versus just being super cool and not giving a shit?<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Some artworks can be very aloof – just pushing you back. There\u2019s a lot of cool ideas in Matthew Barney\u2019s work but then there\u2019s this level of remove that\u2019s very icy for me.<\/p>\n Diamond: Our work is always very personal and we\u2019re honest about where it comes from.<\/p>\n Cristal: And it relates more to pop culture. It\u2019s work responding to the age we live in. Like maybe in the 70s they were reacting to something else and that\u2019s why everything was so minimal. Even though there is a huge scene right now related to performance I think it\u2019s different the way that we are incorporating a lot of things from our life, our rituals in a way. In Chile where I\u2019m from there is nobody doing performance. You talk about performance and they just think about maybe the 70s work but there\u2019s not that new wave.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Even the general public thinks that. My Dad will be like \u201cBecks you\u2019re an amazing artist and an actress!\u201d And yet he refuses to watch any of my videos.<\/p>\n Diamond: I would rather hide my videos from my family. I would hide them from most people actually. Sometimes I feel really conflicted by all of the different personalities that I put out through my various art practices, or you know like we don\u2019t want our booby pictures on Facebook because my whole extended family is on Facebook and that world colliding is freaking me out.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Oh I hate that. My Dad tried to Facebook friend me like five times and I was like get a clue.<\/p>\n Diamond: Facebook is becoming such a weird fucking zone. Sometimes I\u2019m just so motivated to do an emotional purge of some sort, saying something that I shouldn\u2019t say to that many people but then like nobody really cares anyway. There\u2019s so much going on and you think you have this huge audience and you do but at the end of the day they just don\u2019t give a shit.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: It\u2019s funny how people respond to certain things or not. It\u2019s like people can count on me for an innuendo. I feel like there\u2019s a lot of room in my language for more exploration. I\u2019m not interested in the straight up politics anymore. I don\u2019t even read the news anymore. Although I mean it comes to me, when it comes to me – and believe me it does.<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s filtered through the people, filtered through Facebook.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Filter it as we will \u2013 Facebook \u2013 I mean that\u2019s sick but I need that kind of buffer, you sort it out first because I can\u2019t deal with all that. I just want to be more in the place of my imagination.<\/p>\n Diamond: It can be really heavy. Going on the internet, email, Facebook, everyone and every entity, company is just trying to grab your attention now. The pace of life is so much quicker because of this technology you have to be really focused and there is only certain things that I choose to focus on or have time for and it\u2019s definitely not the news or television. I\u2019m really out of touch with what\u2019s going on in the world I can only focus on so many things\u2026 like rappers and rappers.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Rappers, rappers, AND rappers!!<\/p>\n Diamond: It allows me to dance with this fantasy, with art, and people appreciate that.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: I think we\u2019re picking up on everything that\u2019s going on in the world intuitively and that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s just a very small filter, our art, it\u2019s crystallizing our perception of the world. It illuminates something for people because they\u2019re like \u201cWOW I have that experience too\u2026\u201d For the artist it\u2019s magnified, so by magnifying it we explain it and push through.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Maybe that\u2019s why we don\u2019t look at performance art. I draw inspiration from what I see that\u2019s very structured and conservative in art, I draw inspiration from that, I also get inspiration from history. I\u2019m nerding out on Puritan history all of the time. I like to read a lot of non-fiction.<\/p>\n Diamond: It seems like the real inspiration for many artists and definitely for me comes from outside the art world. I appreciate art but I\u2019m also kind of bored with it whereas other things might feel super interesting.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Yeah like rappers<\/p>\n Diamond: Totally. When I went to interview these rappers the Illuzion the one who I initially contacted Salomon Faye really wanted me to interview his friend Ryan Bock who he collaborating on a video with. Of course it was this white kid making video art who went to art school just like me and it felt a little too familiar. I\u2019m looking to rappers trying to unravel the Holy Grail not realizing how much this longing is about my own real or perceived lack. For the Illuzion as rappers coming up these days they don\u2019t even want to be exclusively hip hop they want to write plays and paint and the works.<\/p>\n Cristal: That was just like this rapper I dated Char for a while. She was always like \u201cOh I wish I could just rap in a gallery\u201d and \u201cI just really want to go to museums\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Diamond: It\u2019s exotic for them.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: I collaborate with a lot of musicians. I danced my ass off the other day at Flux Factory until 4 in the morning. The female DJ is actually a photographer and I\u2019ve done some projects with her. She is from South American and she played a lot of Cumbia. She turned it out! I was like \u201cGirl \u2013 people fucking needed that.\u201d<\/p>\n Cristal: Otherwise it just becomes so dry like where do you get your inspiration from, you know?<\/p>\n Diamond: Art that quotes art, I hate that, even though we all do it but that inside joke thing that just drags us through the trail of a bunch of dead white males? Ick<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: Yeah it\u2019s so gross. I hate that. It\u2019s like don\u2019t you have anything to say? Even my humor is very serious, I have things to say.<\/p>\n Diamond: Humor makes things accessible.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: How is the Warrior Goddess Workshop at the Living Gallery going, did you get funding?<\/p>\n Diamond: We got a Brooklyn Arts Council grant. It\u2019s our first grant, it\u2019s small, it\u2019s a bare bones grant.<\/p>\n LobstaGirl: That\u2019s awesome I\u2019m just glad you\u2019re being compensated to do it though even if it\u2019s minimal – it\u2019s RESPECT.<\/p>\n Cristal: Yes and it does give it more legitimacy.<\/p>\n Diamond: We\u2019re paying guests artists and we rented the Living Gallery space, it\u2019s good to spread the love\u2026<\/p>\n Cristal: Also Nyssa\u2019s gallery does have a lot of community-oriented activities and basically it\u2019s our very first work totally oriented to community so it does present a lot of new challenges. We\u2019ve been going out to schools trying to get young women and then they\u2019re just kind of laughing and just don\u2019t care a lot of times.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n