GLITTA BOMB
Psychedelic, Satirical, Personal & Political storytelling that’s packed to the rafters with puns, punches & possibilities. BODY MAP is deep dive across the consumer bordered planet and into our inner being, highlighting our capacity to transform despite the odds. Created by Australia’s most celebrated underground performance artist & the worlds original sex clown Glitta Supernova guides you on an intimate fleshy foray through the parallel universes of 90s club culture & performative theatre, whom spoke with The Melbourne Critique, about performance, hopes, dreams and desire.
Introduce us to your world, what it means to create work, and what work hopes to convey?
The worlds that the original sex clown shares are Hyper gendered, Hyper sexual & hyper realism. It’s a celebration of the sacred profane – spiritual, sexual, personal. Step into the campy technicolored & psychedelic world of extremes. Cartoon porn, deep & meaningful, yuck & yum. Attraction verses repulsion, realism against surrealism as the veils and skirts or reality are lifted. I am driven to offer an alternate reality, to challenge mediocrity, conformists disguised as change agents and grey as a color. I am looking down the kaleidoscope of the (social) media façade & deep into its framework of power & control. I believe in the liberation of our spirits & that art can move perceptions & transform the culture. Through my 25 years of creating art I see societies pendulum continually swinging forwards & backwards & I continue to push back. Uncensored non-conformist anarchy, rebellion and a bit of chaos – no people pleasing here.
What can we expect from this performance, and what are some of the concepts or themes you are unpacking, and why are they so important?
As a performer who has used my body as a weapon for social change for over 2 decades I wanted to explore why nudity was considered dirtier than ever before. Our gaze on the human form has never been more pervasive and we have never been more Judged. I wanted to normalize nudity & the body & explore objectification within intimacy with the question can you objectify someone you know? While I was breaking this down I realized the corporate 1st world now owns our bodies & is continually appropriating subcultures which is the pulse of our spiritual essence.
We live in a time where anything of significant power gets homogenized & sold back to us…any whiff of the powerful & rebellious the machine will nip it in the butt, disempowering it in a way that works best for the capitalistic agenda. Sell it! As society once again moves into a conservative cycle it’s more important than ever to challenge the homogenized, prepackaged & conservative opinions that are sold to us subtly (& not so) via consistent drip feed via mass & social media. Body Map wants to attach you to your spirit, to the creativity within you & to each other through story that is both surreal & hyper real.
If you could elevate one thing from the world through art, what would it be and how would you do it?
When you have trodden the boards as long as I have you see trends come & go – Conservatism oscillates & society shifts accordingly.
I was part of starting up Australia’s 1st burlesque club Gurlesque back in 1998 which ran for 10 years till 2008 …. wanting woman to find their power & self-acceptance, rebel against the gender & sexual stereotypes we had been dished out in whatever shape they fit. This is common practice now but back in the mid 90s it was a radical & underground concept & I am proud of that social change that I was a part of. In my current practice the picture has broadened. I find I am driven to get across how much we are in bondage as humans, I feel there is a war on our spirits, to detach us from creativity, each other & higher power by over stimulating us & saturating us with as much distraction as possible. Stripping us of our power. Making us into zombies. Disconnected humans are easier to control. I wish to shake up our soul memories with my art, inspire change & revolution. It’s happened before so I am praying for it to happen again.
Why are we so obsessed with beauty and perfection of image, and what are you doing to combat such a thing?
We are obsessed with it as we have been conditioned to do so, the media machine has proven itself to be the deadliest of weapons disempowering us & taking the money back its giving us in our day jobs by selling us the message its given us to create. It’s our responsibility as artists to offer more color & substance, to challenge, remind, inject to our culture, to go beyond just mindless digestible & commercial entertainment. I hope that exposing my authentic self inspires others to have the space to self-reflect.
Hopes for the world at large, art and your own practice moving forward in these increasingly fucked up times?
I personally think we need a spirit revolution where as a people access our own inner power, reject all the externalism and consumerism that has been sold to us, unplug from the illusion & rise up strong then inspire each other & support each other to rise out of the zombie apocalypse we are living & surviving in. Instead of political infighting we need to join for the higher purpose & be the change in the world we want be. Acceptance of ourselves but, most importantly, each other’s differences. Connect to the planet & each other in real time.
