(2011-01-12) Sterling Cibelle

Bruce Sterling is a big fan of Cibelle Cavalli, and it’s not because of her music (although her music is pretty good, if you like exotic Brazilian electronica with diva vocals). Pop stars are always interesting to me, while musicians interest me only on occasion. Musicians create works of music. Popstars create wannabes. (Music Industry)

I surmise that this decade is gonna reveal a lot more people who are doing what Cibelle is doing — following her strategy, although, likely not quite in the way she is doing it... First, she’s offshored (Off Shoring)... Second, she’s electronic and digital... Third, Cibelle does elaborate, artsy, even vaudeville-style performances with lighting, props and costumes... Fourth, Cibelle has a cluster of allies who support her, and these people are not musicians... Fifth (I’m still counting), Cibelle has got a theorist angle... As a sixth and final twist — and it’s something I can’t resist — Cibelle practices folk Design Fiction.

(Only a really, really big, young, multiracial, multiethnic country like Brazil or the USA could get behind some anthropophagic syncretism. It’s an alternative model for a global, rootless, massive culture. It’s like magic-realist globalization. I’ve never yet done any anthropophagic Abravanista syncretism, but I’m pretty into Postmodern subjectivity fragmentation. Gimme enough cachaca and lime juice, and hey, I might be able to hold my breath and get over there from here.)

She’ll never be Lady Gaga, and MIA is a lot more politically edgy if that’s what you’re looking for, but Cibelle, for me, is the avant-garde. Not in her music so much as her cultural activities, her global position. So: you wanna know what a plausible Pop Star looks like ten, fifteen years from now? She’s very into performance, dress, shoes and clothes. She’s cloud-centric and globally mobile. She comes from a social movement rather than a recording label or a publishing house. She’s a syncretic multi-artist model-actress web personality, with a catchy soundtrack. Her fans are her participants. And she’s female, young, and Brazilian.