Experimental music producer and artist, Alejandro Ghersi, also often known as Arca, creates otherworldly and yet intimate music. Dissonant and distorting, the previous child star from Venezuela first gained attention back in 2014 along with his album Xen – a critical success that was followed up by the 2015 Mutant. The addition of his vocals to his self-titled third album released last yr (and chosen by Dazed as the very best album of 2017) brought a good looking human element to his signature harshness. Visually Arca plays with and pushes against the boundaries of normative gender, often donning high heels not only in his performances and music videos, but in on a regular basis life. Skirts, lipstick, and corsets are all a part of Arca’s visual language, in addition to fetish gear, latex outfits and bondage. Intensely sexual, Arca’s art can be injected with elements of horror and violence, often coming from collaboration with long-time friend and Dazed Beauty Community member, Jesse Kanda.

It’s Arca’s attraction to the perverse, and his ability to search out the sweetness in it, that has long appealed to 26-year-old British author Charlie Fox, who wrote in praise of Arca in his latest book, This Young Monster. Championed by heavyweights akin to John Waters and Hilton Als, This Young Monster is a celebration of the ugly, the weird, and the transgressive. After publishing it, Charlie sent a replica to Arca, who by this point was still a stranger. We arranged for the 2 self-confessed outsiders to fulfill on Skype. That is what happened.

“Being an incurable mutant, I never had the ‘normal’ response to Arca’s records or videos. Yup, I’m going ‘Wow’ and feel sick and horny but that just means I feel at home, as if he’s stomping around inside my very own brain. He takes stuff condemned as perverse, warped or frightening and rips it open to disclose something so beautiful it breaks your heart. It’s a magic trick and it’s about love. That’s my whole thing, too (if you happen to touch the scary monster, something magical will occur) so we talked.  Ages ago, I sent him a replica of my book, This Young Monster, with a quote by Selina Kyle (a.k.a. Catwoman) from Tim Burton’s masterpiece Batman Returns scribbled on a ripped birthday card and snuck between the pic of a werewolf holding a severed head and a few kids on Halloween: “Sickos never scare me,” she purrs, “a minimum of they’re committed…” I Skyped him in my South East London bedroom on a dismal Friday afternoon. We discussed panic attacks, being grotesque, nightmare eagles and X-Men. I forgot to ask him if he’d ever cover Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’. Perhaps for Xmas? He had the book in his hands and, to interrupt the virtual ice, I took a screenshot of him licking it.

Arca: That scene modified my life.

Charlie Fox: Those early Tim Burton movies mean a lot to me. Like, I just desired to have that scary power and be Catwoman.

Arca: Yeah, you might be, girl! The Eartha Kitt one was legend, too, but that scene where she opens up the closet and starts cutting up all the lovable t-shirts is so symbolic. It’s sort of sad because [Catwoman’s life] is about empowerment at the fee of affection.

Charlie Fox: I just still wanna be that. I still wanna have— (making hands jagged and catlike)

Arca: (pawing on the screen): Claws!

Charlie Fox:  Yeah! I just desired to enjoy the darkness, having fun with every part you’re not allowed to do. Spray every part black.

Arca: It’s inconceivable to exorcise the darkness out of you. We are able to pretend it’s not there until something bursts. We would like to be rigid and be only this one thing so I’m good, I’m not dirty.

Charlie Fox:  Shame is a waste of time.

Arca: It might probably be a superb window to explore as long as you don’t get into compulsion. Compulsion is a behaviour that short-circuits you out of feeling ashamed and then you definitely feel triple-ashamed afterwards. You get that with every kind of self-harm.

Charlie Fox: And it comes out of curiosity, too. If you have got a wierd relationship to your body, you simply wanna know what’s happening inside there.

Arca: Once I was really young, I got this kids book on the mind. One part was about blindspots in our vision and once I got here into contact with the undeniable fact that [we had] blindspots, it blew my mind. One other chapter was about lucid dreaming…

Charlie Fox: I had a extremely strange dream the opposite night. I used to be in bed with this eagle and it began clawing the back of my neck. It was a stunning bird however it really hurt. Once I woke up, I could still feel the scarring and pain from this eagle on the back of my neck. I used to be really into it.

Arca: That feels like the eagle in bed is you. And the you-in-bed is one other you, and the eagle’s attempting to say ‘Hi!’ and wake you up.

Charlie Fox: Yes! That’s what it’s! [Laughs]

Arca: We try to banish whole inner realms. Sometimes you have got to the touch the thing inside you’re most afraid of and see what happens once you touch it somewhat than look away from it on a regular basis.

Charlie Fox: That’s what I attempt to do on a regular basis. Lick the eagle. Attempt to empathise with things that I would think are repulsive or wanna withdraw from or whatever. I wanna get inside them and allow them to ooze throughout me.

Arca: Beautiful.

Charlie Fox: And that’s all the time scary.

Arca: Fucking terrifying! But we get too bogged down in language and rationality.

Charlie Fox: I used to be super depressed as a baby once I learnt I couldn’t turn into an animal. I could never grow fur…

Arca: You would get fur implanted! We are able to change our bodies. Fuck the folks that would find that an issue. We’re not answerable for determining why something feels good because that feels eerily just like feeling guilty about something, somewhat than simply feeling it. Like kids are only creating ways to perceive and express themselves on the planet before we predict up all these dumb-ass rules.

Charlie Fox:  The time once I feel most comfortable is when there’s some element of costume or transformation that I can apply to myself and I don’t see that artifice as bad or inauthentic.

Arca: Anyone fucking tell me what ‘authentic’ is to my face! Explain it. And as they stumble of their words, they’d just realise they’re talking about words, not experience or sensuality. There’s blood and violent imagery in my videos. I don’t know why. It’s… mystical, right? That word is corny.

Charlie Fox: But it surely’s right. Another thing makes that stuff come out. I never understand why I wanna make my things. Why did I wanna transform into a lady within the book? Grotesque thoughts fire me up.

Arca: It’s grotesque to consider the body we inhabit we would like to inhabit 24/7.

Charlie Fox: Yeah!

Arca: But [at the same time] I like grotesque, it’s a compliment.

Charlie Fox: It’s the most well liked thing.

Arca: You’re identifying a vector of how something’s imagined to move and moving antagonistically inside it. It’s beautiful but confusing, too, it causes anxiety. You only need to behold the thrash metal solo of the universe. Like if you have got a panic attack and you’ll be able to’t tell if you happen to’re respiration or not.

Charlie Fox: Oh, the air gets solid. It’s horridly sensual. It animates every a part of your body and sets it on fire.

Arca: I like that you simply don’t rush to pathologise it but make it sensual. You may swerve a panic attack but she’s gonna have a cigarette and are available back.

Charlie Fox: It’s all the time coming. I remember one where I felt like I used to be only a head. A suffocating head that never knew the way to breathe.

Arca: Wow, that’s hard.

Charlie Fox: That’s why once I’m working I wanna have demonic fun: making things melt, making things grow where they shouldn’t.

Arca: You change into the darkness and it recognises you as certainly one of your individual. A monster is an aberration. Perhaps it didn’t wanna be bad but when it gets poked and prodded, it shockwaves.

Charlie Fox: And I all the time recognised myself far more in those characters. I used to be like, ‘That’s me!’

Arca: Like Psylocke from X-Men, she knew every part about fashion and he or she shot pink energy out of her hands.

Charlie Fox:  I liked the Beast. He was a thinker but he had this deep rage and I used to be so offended as a child. Being scary is a weapon.

Arca: Like in Coco, the Pixar movie, where there’s one death, you go to the Land of the Dead, and there’s the ultimate death where you’re forgotten. It’s chilling.

Charlie Fox: That’s the very best feeling when it’s something you’ll be able to’t name. A shiver.

Arca: Yes! I’m pretty good at moving into states of fear and sadness, let me try something else. It’s a game I’m playing in my head, feeling around at nighttime and I can find what’s soft and as an alternative of retreating from that to something sharp that may cut me the fuck up, I can go along with the soft thing.

Charlie Fox: Let it cover you.

Arca: I like skincare so much. The acidity of the ecosystem that lives in our face. This one queen on the pharmacist was like, Do this, it’s really good for stains. I went, (mock-horrified): ‘Stains?!’

Charlie Fox: Witch!

Arca: Like in The Sixth Sense with the mom who poisons her daughter. That film scared the living shit out of me.

Charlie Fox: So scary because there’s no quarantine between the scale: the dead individuals are just there.

Arca: Yes! OK, let’s meet next time I’m in London.

Charlie Fox: Yeah, howl for me. Once I was a baby, I’d stand outside, howling like a wolf within the suburbs. All the children that I never saw all the time howled back like this weird chorus.

Arca: Oh my god, that’s so beautiful, I’m gagging.

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