Can a hero be a devil? Can a robot show emotion? Is it kawaii? The world you are standing in allows this contradictory dichotomy, this nebulous being; to exist. Meet Aphrodite A. Tall, ripped and with soft curves; we look upon a body that is exhausted, void of the cataclysmic missiles that give AA power in the universe. A moment of rest as a result of support and service; her sole purpose in life leaves her vulnerable (but not for long). Her tough materiality and statuesque scale opens up a fissure of fragility in this moment, an abstract nostalgia from...
Can a hero be a devil? Can a robot show emotion? Is it kawaii?
The world you are standing in allows this contradictory dichotomy, this nebulous being; to exist.
Meet Aphrodite A.
Tall, ripped and with soft curves; we look upon a body that is exhausted, void of the cataclysmic missiles that give AA power in the universe. A moment of rest as a result of support and service; her sole purpose in life leaves her vulnerable (but not for long). Her tough materiality and statuesque scale opens up a fissure of fragility in this moment, an abstract nostalgia from her creator and a nod to the influence on a young girl watching cartoons and exploring identity. Youth will soon bring her back to fighting strength.
Fierce and empowered but wide eyed. Can AA be cute? The lines are blurred. A warlord on her throne surrounded by expended "Breast Fire". A cat-like face and pensive, stoical pose with a seductive and sleek physique. AA swings between devil and hero, a balancing act of delicate love and sheer ferocity.
Set values define the character’s hypothetical inclinations and precise goals, they ultimately govern what inhabitants of a world will and will not do. When values are in conflict, judgments and choices need to be made. Far from solely being interested in celebrating the character’s traits however, Flores would like to navigate her world in 'Anoche Yo Soñé Nuestra Muerte Simultánea : Last Night I Dreamed our Simultaneous Death'. To peer inside, perhaps to be a little more AA.
A metaphor for battle, internal and otherwise.
This society is striving for constant ‘growth’, intrinsic curiosities drive techno-magical inventions and scientific innovation. AA is magical, engineered yet prehistoric; made of bolts and volcanic ash. Cultural leaps reflect ideas of progress, like a photograph; a momentary slice of time and space passes by at speed. A hyper-speed race for survival. Science fiction regularly breeds this blend of the crude and the overproduced, often offering a moment to reflect on our own bodies and agency IRL. The means of "delivering" AA, her scale and greatness is what mere mortals cannot achieve for themselves. Her form relates to a traditionally masculine space, designed at height, heavy and mechanical. AA confuses this, drawing out a desire to live vicariously through her and her contemporaries.
Anticipated nostalgia, mourning of the present and future.
AA keeps her future-self locked away in an amulet on the wall, endowed with hyper-combat assets and sits under her watchful gaze. Like us, we project that we will be a better version of ourselves as we move through life, gathering more knowledge, experience, and scars along the way. Future AA is ‘Minerva X’. Worshipped here, she is sleek, replenished and peacefully awaiting her birth. Many heads and many missiles will pass before MX comes to being, a cyclical process of learning, love, pain, death and repeat.
Opposite MX, lies nemesis Ashura; imprisoned within their own gaze. A split personality which inherits the same contradictions as AA - feminine and masculine, aroused internally; a constant cycle of love and violence. Fetishised as an athletic male and curvaceous female, Ashura embraces these urges and allows the subversion to saturate. Ashura asks us to experience the pleasure of indirect violence, temptation.
AA would never.
Her loyalty is too cumbersome, clumsy even; to condone the exploration of rebellious feelings. AA is still a babe, caught between "adult" versions of MX and Ashura. This room is anachronistic, AA cannot exist without either stage and she cannot stop hurtling towards her own ‘adulthood’ where she will eventually become matriarchal and wiser, void of breasts, unsexual and powerless.
Innocence is bliss. Or is it?
