Photo: Unax LaFuente
Published Dec 03, 2021
8
Since the 2012 breakthrough of her Stretch EPs she has played in the fertile chaos of liminality, straddling possibilities beyond binaries with ease. In her visual collaborations with transhumanist artist Frederik Heyman, for example (see the music video for "Prada/Rakata"), esoteric symbolism meets CGI latex in fusions of human and machine. Her reconceptions of gender, genre, language, physicality, and erotic expression coexist in a transgressive multiverse where nothing is out of the question. Her music lives here, too.
Though she is known for helping produce Yeezus, collaborating with artists like FKA twigs and Bjrk, and posing for portraits for Calvin Klein, the essence of Arca's creative mission is made most apparent elsewhere. Following positive reception of her 2020 album KiCK i (including a Grammy nomination), she released an LP composed entirely of remixes of the track "Riquiqui" generated by the AI software Bronze. Last year she released a single called "@@@@@"which clocked in at 62 minutes. Her contributions to Philippe Parreno's installation in the MoMA lobby a technological entity named "Echo" who responds to stimuli ranging from movements of the public to cloud coverage outside the building have expanded into an online project (echo.world) which allows anyone to tune into the dreamscape of live AI technology.
She has a vast community of online followers who call themselves "Mutants" and, in 2015, she was banned from Instagram for art created with Jesse Kanda for her single "Vanity," in which a cyborgian human is depicted with anatomically correct genitalia. Xen, the "genderless being" that shaped her 2014 album of the same name, was not just a character Arca made up. It was an aspect of her identity which she once used to sign off journal entries.
For Arca, fluid embodiment, category defiance, and the merging of dissonant worlds are more than abstract concepts. Her work exists deliberately beyond the margins of what can be neatly categorized.
The five-record KICK cycle also refuses to be reduced by a lens of linearity. A press release explains that Arca's follow-ups to KiCK i are not sequels, but fractal-like "expansions."Each is intended as a self-contained and totally unique world within a larger multidimensional self-portrait.
The first of these new fractals forays into familiar territory, further developing the avant-electro-meets-reggaetn universe Arca started building withKiCK i. Sung primarily in Ghersi's native Spanish, KICK ii manages symmetry and catchiness despite its descents into the bizarre. Gravelly purrs and the sounds of blades sharpening collide with robotic heartbeats and the crackling of flames. Even at her most accessible, Arca refuses to paint from a predictable palette. But for all her experimentation and chaotic tangents, it is clear in KICKii that she is acutely aware of the balance necessary to build a bop.
The record is nothing if not danceable, although the territory it covers varies. In "Born Yesterday," Arca and Sia pull off anthemic pop. On "Lula Llena," which translates into "Full Moon," eerie otherworldly musings are subdued by a hypnotic dancefloor beat on the cusp of dissolution, while "Araa" invites listeners to tune into something resembling the soundtrack to a video game gone wrong.
If KICKii keeps things weird while remaining approachable, KicK iii practically dares listeners to come closer. The opener "Bruja" makes it clear from the get-go: Arca will not cater to those easily spooked out of her turbulent cyborgian utopia. "Hush it while I lick my bloody claws," Arca instructs. "Did I stutter? Hear me roar." An aggressive rhythmic pulse drives the 12-track album, which harks back to Arca's roots in underground dance music. She bends and breaks down structural formalities, letting echoes and aberrations create warped containers for incendiary sonic layering. There are moments which approach the lucidity of pop, such as in "Seorita," the record's punchy lyrical centerpiece, and "Joya," which closes iii on a note of all-encompassing peace. For the most part, though, the album bears little narrative consistencyonly expansions and distillations of sound which create an ambience so overpowering it is inescapable.
We then enter the eye of the storm. kickiiii swaps cacophony for the serene comfort of atmospheric subtlety. Songs like "Esuna" grace us with raw orchestral elements which are seldom found in Arca's work. While "Whoresong" sees Arca describe her cyclical rebound from hardship and the "bloodlust for beauty" which guides her, "Witch," a collaboration with No Bra, recites a hypnotic incantation and meditates loosely on Kristeva's "abject" over a stripped-down piano melody. In "Queer," Arca and Planningtorock ode LGBTQ+ resilience, singing of the "tears of fire" inherent to the struggle in a sea of celestial sound.
By KiCK iiiii, we are in truly subdued territory. An avant-classical journey into quieter realms, it privileges instrumental detail and tender lyricism over rhythmic intensity. In fact, the record is largely stripped of percussion. Even at its most upbeat, it is reminiscent of the sublimity of Aphex Twin, reminding listeners of the influences which shaped Arca's earliest musical ventures. The KICK anthology is an intergalactic escapade with occasionally violent pit-stops, and iiiii signifies our landing on a planet where peace is possible. One can practically hear birds chirping in the distance.
If the KiCK cycle is an ambitious attempt to make Arca's multidimensionality as human/artist/machine tangible in the formation of a musical universe, the result is neither fully cohesive nor flawless. Her apparent artistic worldview begs the question, though: is it supposed to be?
After all, the anthology began last year with the track "Nonbinary," in which Arca takes wry stabs at those who are distressed by her sovereign ambiguity. Arca seems uninterested in guiding us from a starting point to a definitive destination. Instead, she invites us to explore layers of being with her in a descent/ascent that is constantly both departing and arriving.
KICK ii, iii, iiii, and iiiii demonstrate Arca's prowess in multiple worlds, as she curses in English and laments in Spanish, oscillating between softness and grit, symphonic realness and grating distortion. The records' stand-out moments are almost exclusively moments: a glitch which grows to an arc, a sudden instance of sharp contrast, or a verbal assertion of badassery from Arca herself. KICKlacks a stable throughline, but it is perhaps the possibility of holding many discordant throughlines at once that drives Arca. The albums paint a self-portrait, and no human, no matter how cyborgian, is composed of parts which can be perfectly consolidated.
As a fully-formed whole, KICKis vibrant if not somewhat scattered. As a jumping-off point for more fractal-like expansions, though, it is explosive, with potential only really conceivable to Arca herself.(XL)
See more here:
Arca's 'KICK' Cycle Is an Explosive Exploration of Her Multidimensionality - Exclaim!
- Green Goblin, the Hasty Transhumanist - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - April 18th, 2024 [April 18th, 2024]
- Your Favorites Radio | All your favorite songs and artists - iHeartRadio - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- Can't Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for November and ... - tor.com - November 15th, 2023 [November 15th, 2023]
- What is posthumanism? And should you worry about it? - Aleteia - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Ray Kurzweil Predicts: The Singularity by 2045 - Discovery Institute - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- A Conversation About God | Dr. John Lennox - The Daily Wire - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- 'Billions' of megalomaniacal humanoids could, one day, ambush the ... - Robotics and Automation News - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- 3rd Annual ELTS Graduate Student Conference: Speculative ... - UCLA International Institute - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Donna Haraway's Children: Meet the Dynamic Young Artists Who ... - Cultured Magazine - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Scary Movies for Anarchists to Watch at the End of the World - CounterPunch - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Data Summit 2023: shaping the future of AI and Data - Scottish Business News - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Ghost Work and the Enduring Necessity of Human Labor - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Alien TV series: Plot, cast, release date and everything we know - Yahoo Lifestyle UK - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- Traditional Perspectives on Philosophy - pt. 1: Voluntarism - OnePeterFive - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- Accusations of a Government Cover-Up Dominate Congressional UFO Hearing - Decrypt - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Appoints Dan Hendrycks as Advisor to xAI Startup - Fagen wasanni - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- Anton Vidokle on the Cinema of the Stars - Ocula Magazine - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- The day the bubble burst: Akira and Japan's economic 'miracle' - Canadian Dimension - July 27th, 2023 [July 27th, 2023]
- Ex-Google engineer says humans will achieve immortality in 7 years; here's how netizens reacted - Business Today - April 6th, 2023 [April 6th, 2023]
- Super-intelligence and eternal life: transhumanism's faithful follow it ... - March 31st, 2023 [March 31st, 2023]
- Pioneering Transhumanism: a conversation with Natasha Vita-More - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- 4 Problems with Transhumanism - Human Life International - February 2nd, 2023 [February 2nd, 2023]
- Transhumanism: Examining the risks, benefits, and ethical implications ... - January 25th, 2023 [January 25th, 2023]
- Noted Transhumanist Now Targeting Our Children: Whats inside Yuval ... - January 10th, 2023 [January 10th, 2023]
- Humans Will Never Colonize Mars - Gizmodo - January 10th, 2023 [January 10th, 2023]
- Ghost in the Shell (1995) - IMDb - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- The Transhumanist Agenda Behind Bidens Executive Order on Advancing ... - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- The Missing Plan for Alien First Contact to Pro-and-Anti-UFO Factions in U.S. Government (Planet Earth Report) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries... - November 8th, 2022 [November 8th, 2022]
- Biden Signs Executive Order Designed to Unleash "Transhumanist Hell" on ... - November 7th, 2022 [November 7th, 2022]
- Biden transhumanist executive order: We need to program biology ... - November 7th, 2022 [November 7th, 2022]
- Meaning of life - Wikipedia - November 7th, 2022 [November 7th, 2022]
- Take years off your age: this Israeli expert says its all up to you - Haaretz - November 7th, 2022 [November 7th, 2022]
- Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into ... - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Bidens Executive Order Designed to Release Transhumanist Hell on ... - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- Biden's Executive Order Advances Biotech-Transhumanist Agenda ... - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Elon Musks Neuralink allegedly subjected monkeys to extreme suffering - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Doomsday bunkers, Mars and 'The Mindset': the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world - The Conversation Indonesia - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Is the body key to understanding consciousness? - - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- Nvidia and the 3D Future of the Internet - TechNewsWorld - October 8th, 2022 [October 8th, 2022]
- I have to ask: Did anything happen to you with the 0010110 social media mystery? Are you still with us? - Alan Cross - A Journal of Musical Things - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- If the US is Nineveh, Then Canada is Sodom - The Stream - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- Gaming Adventures You Don't Want To Miss In 2022 - Gamesreviews - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- The theory behind conspiracy - The Spectator Australia - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- What is Creation? | What is Creation? - Patheos - August 30th, 2022 [August 30th, 2022]
- Transhumanism Humanity+ - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Become your true self - Freedom of Form Foundation - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Ghosts, Mummies, and Robots in Buddhism - Buddhistdoor Global - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- The Biggest Threat to Humanity? Black Goo - WIRED - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- You Cant Back the Murder of Alexander Dugin Then Whine About Salman Rushdie Or Attacks on American Neocons - The Stream - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Android app deals of the day: Codex of Victory, Scalak, Reminder Pro, more - 9to5Toys - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Whatever happened to transhumanism? - BioEdge - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Who needs religion when you've got these clowns promoting bad ideas? - Freethought Blogs - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- The Importance of Medical Ethics Highlighted During the 75Th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Code - The Epoch Times - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- History of a hard man: Neil Balme memoir stands out from the pack - Sydney Morning Herald - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Henry Kyereme: Could advances in technology undermine the future of humans? - Myjoyonline - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- Iris Van Herpen Explores Life Beyond the Physical Realm for A/W 22 Couture - vmagazine.com - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- Virtual Beauty, Virtual Freedom, Virtual Love: Is the Metaverse Our Future? - PRESSENZA International News Agency - July 7th, 2022 [July 7th, 2022]
- Network TV Hasn't Been The Same Since This Sci-Fi Drama Left The Air - Looper - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- The myth of 'artificial intelligence' - spiked - Spiked - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- Fulton Sheens July 4 Declaration of Dependence - National Catholic Register - July 4th, 2022 [July 4th, 2022]
- All Agents Defect: Espionage in the Films of David Cronenberg - CrimeReads - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- Tune In: The Art of the Videogame Soundtrack - Highbrow Magazine - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- It's been 10 years since Prometheus, what can the reboot teach the Alien TV show? - TechRadar - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality - Patheos - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- Elon Musk is promoting transhumanism as part of Agenda 2030. - Logically - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- PEW and transhumanism: Public has mixed concerns about arriving era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human enhancement - Genetic Literacy Project - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- David Cronenberg Gets Back to Basics in Crimes of the Future - Vanity Fair - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- Painting on Another Plane: Mandy Cao - MutualArt.com - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- Have Authoritarians Used 1984 as a Handbook? - Verve Times - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- How to Grow and Forage Without Owning Land - Verve Times - May 28th, 2022 [May 28th, 2022]
- Meet the Human Battery, a New Source of "Green" Energy - Verve Times - May 20th, 2022 [May 20th, 2022]
- This Years Venice Biennale is Full of Surrealism and Stark Reminders - Yahoo News - May 20th, 2022 [May 20th, 2022]
- Is it possible to transplant heads? - BioEdge - May 20th, 2022 [May 20th, 2022]
- The Best Movies Of 2022 So Far - /Film - May 20th, 2022 [May 20th, 2022]
- Future of work: the top careers of the next decade - The Age - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Kriya Announces $270 Million Series C Financing to Advance Fully Integrated Gene Therapy Engine - Business Wire - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Five Standout Films Coming To Cannes This Year [Trailers] - 2oceansvibe News - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Cannes 2022: 10 movies to watch out for in this years festival - The Guardian - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- On the Gnostic Ironies of Poets Nathaniel Mackey and Fanny Howe - Literary Hub - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Dismantling the Transhumanist Agenda - The Post & Email - May 6th, 2022 [May 6th, 2022]