Welcome back to this interview with my favorite subject: myself! In Pláton’s “Drinking Party,” Socrates speaks of hoi daímones who possess individuals at birth to warn them against the mistakes they are naturally bound to make. Analogously, Nekosattva can be said to also be hē daímōn who haunts Nekosattva. Or for those of you that know what a ‘Semiotext(e)’ is: there is a spectre haunting Nekosattva— the spectre of Nekosattva.
NEKOSATTVA: Seems a bit masturbatory, doesn’t it? If thinking is the mental intercourse of men, then this sort of introspection with one-self would count as self-intercourse. Or intercursus ipsī̆us.
NEKOSATTVA: I’m not sure that’s correct Latin. And it’s not likely to impress anyone anyway. You’re not a fan-favorite amongst the Roman statue crowd. That’s not your scene, man.
NEKOSATTVA: I wish I knew my scene. In my fantasies, the scene that will have me is yet to be seen. But even there, I can’t muster enough self-worth to imagine said scene full of people with money. There won’t be a review in the New York Times. I think my scene probably has a lot of torn jeans and worn-out caps. Maybe a bit of Carhartt and Dr. Martin’s if we’re being ambitious.
NEKOSATTVA: Yes, it’s likely that the sort of person willing to pay the cost of figuring out what “the Pupa Woman” is actually about is the sort of person with a lot of time that walks away disappointed from college dorm parties.
NEKOSATTVA: Oh, it’s always about sex with you. You’re more fixated than a Dimes Square cling-on. I bet writing the word “pussy” still gives you a childish thrill.
NEKOSATTVA: Speaking of references unlikely to mean anything in the future, let’s discuss some of the references in “Pupa Woman.” I’ve noticed there’s a lot of what Brecht called der Verfremdungseffekt, in which familiar references are manipulated or ‘perverted’ to seem familiar yet alien. No doubt, this is akin to the ‘ecco-jamming’ referenced in the text itself: pop culture, stretched and distorted, becoming alien and new… it might suggest either dystopia or utopia.
NEKOSATTVA: Yes! This is the significance of the only real reference in “Pupa Woman:” the record-store creeps ecco-jam “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle to bring forth the daemonic potential of the sentiment. I find the notion of making Heaven “a place on Earth” to be terrifyingly sacrilegious and radical. And in the Talmudic tradition of the Nehardea Academy, attempting to make Heaven “a place on Earth” is precisely the charge GOD leveled against the people of the world before he punished them by scattering them across the world and dooming them to speak alien languages.
NEKOSATTVA: Susie Q., the anti-hero of “Pupa Woman” responds to the ecco-jams with: “you’re telling me, you’re playing around with worn-out cassettes for fun(?)” This seems to me an excellent encapsulation of the problem of culture today; we’re all playing with worn-out cassettes, reproducing but unable to evolve. People believe this reproduction is akin to control or even freedom, but it seems to me a willful delusion. We escape into these worn-out cassettes of a time we believe to be better; whether it’s nostalgia for revolutions past, or old forms of economic intercourse. Fantasy and science fiction trade almost exclusively in these old signs, stubbornly refusing a critical approach. What is it we fear when we cling to these worn-out cassettes?
NEKOSATTVA: We fear uncertainty and instability, and we’re denied the non-secular rituals of divination and magic which existed as a means to counter said fears. In fantasy proper however, we are granted the license to indulge in such rituals under the express understanding that they not harm the crucial logos of Empire. Fantasy and science fiction, and we may add the Fordist erotic-reproductions of ‘BookTok’ here too, are sandboxes in which the danger to the status quo of theorizing alternatives is gone. However, this danger is precisely what made theorizing alternatives to the status quo so vital. The connection between this and fascism is clear; as Gillian Rose wrote, fascism “publicly abolished the distinction between fantasy and political action.” And inevitably, when fantasy disappoints, the frustration leads us to violence of an often self-destructive sort— hence why both Mishima and Susie Q in “the Pupa Woman” seek a lethal self-transformation.
NEKOSATTVA: And what role does perverting, or ecco-jamming, play in these utopian politics?
NEKOSATTVA: Through perversion, or ecco-jamming, we damage the distinction between entertainment and social critique. Ecco-jamming “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” grants the work what Adorno called “autonomy.” When the work is perverted, it loses its cohesion as a harmonious and meaningful whole. That creates a space for the listener to reflect critically upon the work, without the insistence of safety towards Empire. The instability introduced into the work is unnerving, dangerous, and thereby presents opportunity for change, which is often destructive.
NEKOSATTVA: It might also be instructive to speak about what I’d call the self-consciously “Orientalist” aspects of “the Pupa Woman.” In general, “Pupa Woman” presents a pastiche of East-Asian cultures ‘damaged’ by the internet. Signs that register as chiefly Japanese are distorted and taken to their extremes. I think of the pop-idols themselves including Judy and Lolita-108, which are revealed to be biological machines motivated purely by statistical reasoning. This is surely a parody of the Japanese and Korean pop-industries, where the music itself is merely a byproduct of economic activity. Indeed, all the characters, except for the notable exception of Susie Q. herself, are named after products. It seems that in “the Pupa Woman,” everything beyond the mass-market commodity has withered away. Did you imagine some sort of post-cultural world, in which the old ‘steads’ of culture such as nation or polis have withered away in favor of the culture of the market?
NEKOSATTVA: Yes! The market is understood in “the Pupa Woman” as a mathematical phenomenon; you could call this the economic paradigm. Susie Q. discovers the promise of the computer early on, in which digital Virtua-Idols promise a world in which everything is pure market without the limitations of the material. All that is solid melts into air— in this case, the ‘sexual market’ gets hit by digital commodities that can be endlessly replicated, such that scarcity becomes rather artificial. Susie Q. derives from that the notion that all of her own behavior must follow a similar deterministic path, a mere recognition of what is in her own self-interest. Naturally, the market is such that what is in Susie Q.’s self-interest turns out to be actually in the self-interest of all the media corporations which stand to profit from a pop-idol’s televised suicide. But hey, Susie Q. gets a bowl of noodle-soup and some top rated goon-tent, so it’s all good business in the end.
And what is the “Orient” in our imagination? It is an economic construct. The market hath made liquid the traditions and cultures of the world, such that J-Pop and K-Pop now trade in identical commodities. Every nationalist seems to think of himself as a potentially great hero standing on the docks of a port, refusing the destruction of the national-spirit that every single shiny import represents. “The Pupa Woman” is steeped in orientalist symbols, but the symbols have degraded to the point that they barely mean anything at all. Except for the school girl uniform of course; we see its degradation in real time as Susie Q. presses her feet into Sylvania’s face. To speak of the “Orient” here at all seems to me a sort of national-nostalgia— such fictions do not seem as vital as they once did. The national awakening that succeeds in creating a ‘People’ capable of agency has already happened; they unite under a banner of immaculate women’s faces. Those who still speak of the “Orient” perhaps seek a kind of authentic “Oriental” culture as distinct from mass-market cultural industries— I’m not sure everyone sees that distinction.
NEKOSATTVA: The image of a woman’s face… Pornography also plays a huge role in “the Pupa Woman.” In fact, I’d say the boundaries between pornography and everything else is intentionally blurred by Susie Q.’s friend Sylvania, who seems to represent both a role model and sex icon to Susie Q. Susie Q.’s viewing of a pornographic videotape starring Sylvania seems to blur their identities together, and Susie Q.’s reaction seems akin to a boy discovering that his mother is sexually attractive for the first time.
NEKOSATTVA: Right! Sylvania represents a sort of premature figure of childish love for Susie Q. Sylvania is a distant sexual icon, and a sort of object that Susie Q. can project her desires onto. It is only later on through June that Susie Q. discovers true love— that which threatens to (and succeeds in) destabilizing Susie Q.’s Ego. But I am not a romantic; I do not suggest that such a relation is capable of defeating the market and suggest a path to utopos. Quite the opposite in fact; the violence of this relation between June and Susie Q. is such that it must be turned inwards, into a suicidal act of self-transformation that functions as a retreat into fantasy all together.
NEKOSATTVA: Ah, but isn’t love indeed a powerful source of revolutionary transformation? Isn’t that the reason for 1984’s presentation of misogyny and the restriction of love and sexual intercourse as essential to the state’s control? Think of Lenin’s obsession with Chernyshevsky’s novel about a woman seeking love beyond heteronormative social norms. Think of Alexandra Kollontai’s vision of a universal family of workers, united by free love and mutual respect.
NEKOSATTVA: I am skeptical; I don’t believe love is such a noble feeling. Wasn’t it Giovanni Gentile who wrote “The Fascist accepts life and loves it?” Love is the justification Susie Q. takes as a sufficient reason to abuse June for her own sexual gratification. Or is it love merely when we speak of the more noble, less selfish aspects of the relations between us? No, I’m afraid we must demand so much more than mere love. But neither June nor Susie Q. are capable of articulating anything more than a need for love. They are stuck chewing on worn-out cassettes, endlessly repeating the same tired needs and desires. They are incapable of expressing anything beyond what is found in those worn-out cassettes; that is the central struggle they face, the central struggle most of us now will face. Our desire for love, and the need for sex; they will never amount to anything more than a needy cry for personal fulfilment.
A List of the Things that Probably Happened in “the Pupa Woman” by NEKOSATTVA:
Susie leaves the internet café where she lives and heads for a noodle house where her friend Sylvania works. She gets a call from her broker, Aiwa-Goldstar, who gives her the assignment of a lifetime with Judy.
After Susie’s call with Aiwa-Goldstar, Judy’s suicide is televised live to everyone. Susie gains a morbid fascination of Judy, and begs Sylvania to drive her to the scene of the suicide: the main corporate building of Oriana Music Group, her record company. She takes her camera with her.
The record company is swamped with paparazzi, so Susie takes the initiative of sneaking into the record company in the hopes of some great inside scoop. A few cats guide her past the fences, but a few security guards beat Susie— her life is saved by Duchess Toshiko Autumn-Leaf, a once-famous jazz pianist that turned to production and honing pop talent. The Duchess points Susie towards a man named Dr. Sanyo-Infinity, who would have been celebrating the release of Judy’s single at a hotel that afternoon.
Susie meets a pair of nerds which demonstrate Virtua-Idol. She uses some pills the Duchess gave her to manipulate them into surrendering information. Virtua-Idol is a digitally-generated pop-star ostensibly tailored to each individual’s tastes, yet subtly manipulated according to the demands of the market. Susie considers her own role in what she understands as the market.
Susie meets a few teenage delinquents, Luciana and Amberlynn, who run with a motorcycle gang. Susie’s ‘celebrity-hunter’ job impresses them. The motorcycle gang drives Susie through the Community Zone towards the hotel where Dr. Sanyo-Infinity is said to be.
The teenage delinquents push Susie through the window, where she meets Nancy, the guitarist and singer from a girl band named “the Pupa Girls.” Nancy tells Susie that Dr. Sanyo-Infinity ‘vets’ young idols in a small secret room, and hands Susie a keycard. Susie is suspicious of Nancy’s willingness to help, and she can’t shake the feeling that Nancy was expecting her.
Susie climbs into the closet, and recalls the time when she and Sylvania tried on different novelty outfits in order to escape from their meagre lives. Susie wears a schoolgirl costume, and steps on Sylvania’s body while she masturbates. Susie falls asleep.
Susie wakes up as Dr. Sanyo-Infinity brings in two very young-looking pop-idols into the room. She watches as Dr. Sanyo-Infinity unscrews the head off of one of the girls, revealing the two young pop-idols to be biological machines. The other young girl begins to cry, expressing regret and pain for her inadequacy and obsolescence. Dr. Sanyo-Infinity holds the young pop-idol down to unscrew her head. Susie bursts out of the closet and tells Dr. Sanyo-Infinity to unhand the pop-idol. ‘Dr. Sanyo-Infinity’ expresses confusion, unsure of how much Susie knew or understood about the situation. Susie is not sure if the man was Dr. Sanyo-Infinity at all— she wonders if she’d been tricked by Aiwa-Goldstar, the Duchess, or Nancy. Susie cannot make sense of the role she seems to be playing in these events.
The hotel room and both pop-idols are suddenly destroyed by a missile strike. The aggressor is a machine named Lolita-108, with an appearance uncannily similar to Judy. ‘Dr. Sanyo-Infinity’ attempts to talk Lolita-108 down, but Lolita-108 responds by pulverizing ‘Dr. Sanyo-Infinity.’ Her camera breaks amongst the chaos, which means that she has no longer the ability to capture an objective reality.
Susie runs into the downtown streets for refuge. Her memories of the past and the glittering images of the downtown blur together. In the distance, she hears explosions and the bodies of people flying through the air. No-one seems to be bothered.
Susie takes refuge in the lounge of a train station, where she watches a Judy remembrance show. She remembers both herself and Sylvania being moved by Judy’s youthful appearance and her somehow pre-sexual aura. She leaves Sylvania a voice-message. She learns from the other televisions that a mass-psychosis is taking form called “Judy Syndrome,” and many teenagers are committing suicide just as Judy had done.
Susie boards a train. A fashionable girl attempts to take everyone hostage but Susie tells the girl that her violent acts are merely the result of manipulation in order to generate television views. The girl is an unwitting false actor. Susie sneaks out of the train before the police arrive and beat everyone.
Susie meets two urban vampires who suck her blood. She falls unconscious and has a dream about being a participant in Sylvania’s pornographic productions.
Susie wakes up in a record store and meets ‘ecco-jammers,’ would-be revolutionaries who want to use older cultural junk to subvert the ideological power of mainstream culture. She’s given a disposable camera. She takes portraits of Judy fans who walk into the record store. She learns about June, an experimental artist who looks identical to Judy. June happens to be Judy’s sister. An odd situation featuring a cream-filled donut reminds her of the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child. She learns about a concert of June’s happening that night.
Susie goes to June’s concert. She meets a lot of strange people there. After the concert, she joins a riot. She’s taken away from the riot by a few helpful cats, which guide her up buildings towards a spot overlooking June’s apartment. Susie watches June shower, and contemplates her relationship to the naked body.
Susie spots another paparazzo trying to get a picture of June for a tabloid scoop on Judy, and fights him while June screams in the shower. After the paparazzo is defeated, Susie tries to placate a frightened June by asking her whether Judy is real or a biological machine. A fearful June hides in the closet, but Susie’s vulnerability as she plays with a stuffed animal endears her to June, and June asks Susie to stay and protect her.
June reminisces about her difficult childhood, and the time she’d spent at her uncle’s video-store as she was forced to work there by her father. It reminds Susie of how she’d met Sylvania. In the middle of the story, Susie realizes that Judy’s suicide was merely a television production meant to cover something up and that the real Judy must still exist somewhere. She figures Judy must be at her uncle’s video-store.
Susie finds Judy at her uncle’s video-store. Judy has been eating the cassette tapes in an attempt to regain control over her life by consuming the cultural artifacts of her past. Judy has been eating the cassette tapes. She has grown to become a large and grotesque beast-like machine, with oil oozing from her cracking artificial skin. Susie learns that June’s father had sold her likeness to Oriana Music Group in order to produce Judy, a perfection of a pop ideal. Judy’s endless pop-culture consumption does not bring her happiness, and June asks Susie to burn Judy to death.
Susie realizes that she’d been manipulated into killing Judy, trying up the loose ends and completing the ‘suicide’ of Judy that had been orchestrated. She’d been manipulated in order to cause a rogue Lolita-108 to kill someone she believed to be called ‘Dr. Sanyo-Infinity.’ She questions her own agency, and believes even she is merely an atom set into motion by forces much greater than herself.
Susie and June travel together looking for something to distract themselves. They find the Duchess high on drugs at the waterfront, where she’s fallen-in with a group of people who have rejected society in order to live off of trash. They meet a creature known as Deluxo-Worldbank, who turns out to be an android who constructed a new identity for themselves using discarded consumer goods.
Susie travels through abandoned military bunkers, which are full of societal outcasts living off of trash. There she meets the system-admin of a Judy fan forum. Susie’s identity becomes unstable as she questions her role in the society that barely acknowledges her existence.
June and Susie chase each other through a garbage dump, unsure of their feelings towards each other. They embrace and June rambles on about her feelings. They have sex, but June wants Susie to degrade her, which causes Susie to question her own feelings towards June. Susie acts out what she’d seen on video in Sylvania’s pornography productions, but it makes her feel tremendous guilt. June feels vulnerable, and tells Susie that it was merely her own self-hatred that caused her to desire degradation. June’s confession causes her to transform into an insect, and a newly-grown body part penetrates Susie’s stomach with a violent jab.
June and Susie retreat together to a fantasy, in which June watches Susie sing beautiful piano ballads in a beautiful ballroom. They reflect on the nature of the economy, the power of the market, and the role Judy played. Susie sings a song by the Pupa Girls, but abruptly moves away from the piano. The people in the ballroom watch quietly as a thousand insects violently burst forth from Susie’s stomach, leaving her dead with a warm smile.