![]() “That feeling of needing more power, needing more beauty, needing more respect, needing more love, needing more things is kind of all the songs are about and my relationship to those ideas. “I still fall prey to the same wants and I still look at ads for skincare products and I’ll still buy that and get this,” she says. But those questions don’t make her immune to outside influences. ![]() Her website describes her work as ways of “exploring identity and cultural expectations.” Part of what makes Robinson’s art resonate is her ability to explore her own identity while questioning the systems around her that inform its shape. She’s used her experimental art to understand existence, through the forms of art-pop mixtapes and interactive museum exhibits. “You could read something about climate change and then the next thing is an ad for laser hair removal.”īorn Lakisha Robinson, Kish has shared her multidisciplinary work as Kish Robinson and her music under the name Kilo Kish for over a decade. “I really wanted it to have this feeling of scrolling through media, or the way that we consume information,” Robinson explains, noting the randomness of how information is thrown at us. But ultimately, both are an artful simulation of survival that can create a horrific rift in reality if we stare at the screen too long. ![]() Our daily feeds are shiny and enticing like PacMan chasing after colorful batches of fruit. The arcade game structure captures the thrilling choice of partaking in entertaining distraction and the benign disappointment that winning was never an option in modern life. Instead of answers, they walk away with questions of their own.) “At the end, it's like, what did I just see? It's exploring that dissonance of what is even happening around me, and how do I relate to it?” They bang on the console, declare it’s broken, and demand their money back. The group of friends who began playing at the album’s beginning isn’t happy. (Spoiler Alert: by American Gurl’s end there isn’t a winner or loser, and there’s no comforting resolution to these queries. “What is the American game, and how do you play it? How do you win at this game, and is it possible,” she wonders. She offers a grocery list of questions that inspired her album. Not even five minutes into the conversation and she casually dives into the heavier themes of her new project. It's constant noise coming from every place,” Kish says while sipping on tea. “Being in an arcade in general is extremely overstimulating. They playfully banter before Kilo Kish blasts us into her glitchy popera. “That one: American Gurl,” one friend commands. The chaotic dinging of game consoles and metallic clash of pinballs reverberate in infinite directions vying for attention. “Ohhh, arcade! Let’s play,” an anonymous voice chimes on the album’s opener. Skilled at packaging existential complexities into visceral conceptual art - her 2016 breakthrough album, Reflections in Real Time, felt at times like a cartoon diary that sprouted legs and couldn’t outrun the philosophical grief she detailed - Kish transports us into a neon-lit arcade where our senses are overwhelmed by blinking lights, bleeping sound effects, sticky surfaces, and sugary smells. This is the concept behind Los Angeles-based artist Kilo Kish’s sophomore album American Gurl, out March 25. Or, maybe, you didn’t realize you were even taking part. Updates, ads, and subscriptions are at war over our attention in this game that you’ve forgotten why you started playing. Blush colored hearts that pop up at the top of our screens are normalized validation points thumbs flicking away at glass challenge if there’s an end to the endless scroll the chance of virality hides behind every post like some empty daily lottery. Increasingly, our reality feels like a game.
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