Arca and being touched by pop music

Of the five physical senses, touch is perhaps the most broadly used in metaphorical and analogic meanings. To be “touched,” or for something to be “touching,” can be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on context and shared understanding. In aesthetic criticism, hapticality has been interpreted similarly broadly, particularly as regards photography and film. But much of this work has only hinted at the possibilities for the hapticality of sound. On a parallel disciplinary track, trans studies have produced important work in haptics and the constructedness of bodies and gender, which has also been used in some trans aesthetic philosophy. This paper attempts to join the two in interrogating a trans haptic aesthetics through the work of Venezuelan pop musician Arca, and particularly her five-album KiCk series. Through these albums, I propose a trans haptic aesthetics based on a capacious understanding of texture: through the sonic, thematic, and self-presentational elements of the music. In so doing, I work towards a resistant, liberatory aesthetics that uses texture to reach out and touch communities of listeners, and speculate on the effects of listeners being touched and touching back.