Lynn Hershman Leeson & Eileen Myles The Double

In a 1978 film called Lynn Turning into Roberta, the artist Lynn Hershman Leeson applies makeup to her face, sets a wig on her head, and gradually eases into the role of her fictitious persona and multiyear performance piece Roberta Breitmore (1972-1979). Roberta rode buses around San Francisco, went to a psychiatrist, and had her own credit card. To say that Hershman Leeson was ahead of her time would be an understatement. A pioneer in performance, video, and multimedia art who throughout her life has probed the connections between technology and society, she recently converted her collected works into synthetic DNA. Here, Hershman Leeson and Myles speak about past glories, present fame, and the long life of an artist.