No longer content with merely naming herself after the speed of light, indie-art-pop wunderkind Grimes would now like to be light. The Art Angels artist gave an interview to Flaunt this week, in which she expressed a desire to give up the life of the touring musician, instead switching to the “hologram” model of public performance.
Said laser-based honor is, of course, typically reserved for posthumous approval—the modern, slightly Star Wars-y equivalent of having your face permanently trapped on a U.S. postage stamp. But as Grimes—or c, as she’s been referring to herself of late—not entirely unreasonably notes, “Why do we keep doing them for dead artists instead of living ones who have stage fright?” As Consequence Of Sound points out, it’s been more than a year since Grimes performed a full concert, with her news cycle mostly being occupied with news about her weirdo boyfriend, or her relative position in the grand Azealiza Banks-Jack Dorsey Magical Beard Hair conspiracy. A noted perfectionist, she makes it clear in that same interview that she’s not particularly in love with performing, expressing a desire to be “Gorillaz” instead of “Beyoncé” with her music:
It’s nightmarish. Apocalyptic. Terrifying, horrible. I can’t hear clapping or cheers—I just hear an echo chamber of death. I black out. Dissociation—I can’t tell what’s happening. After a show I’m always thinking, What happened? And people are like “It’s ok!” I know people like the authenticity of live performance, and I do too. But I’m not a good performer. I’m a director who accidentally fell into this position, and now it’s too late to change. So I need to Gorillaz it—I need to find a way to not have to do the Beyoncé thing as much.”
c is currently gearing up for the release of her fifth studio album, Miss_Anthrop0cene, which is, in her own words, “about the anthropomorphic goddess of climate change,” a process we can only assume will be accelerated when a legion of LaserGrimes begin proliferating across the planet, spreading her musical gospel.