Serene Obscenity is the vessel through which Kira Glass channels the [digital--astral--ethereal] into art, music, and writing.
Philosophy
Much of modern life is defined by the ability of an individual to survive the excess of stimulation targeted at them, to create meaning in a seemingly nameless void. An artificial and ever-shrinking firmament keeps us locked in a state of desparation and precarity. The inability to survive under these circumstances is seen as individual weakness and a failure of the self to adapt to the current dire state of society. In reality, the desperate struggle to find self-actualization in modern Western society is a desired outcome of the system we all find ourselves consumed by - the afformentioned "firmament." In the era of livestreamed genocide, this system has shown its true face and its depraved intentions. This system has many names: capitalism, imperialism, racism, zionism, transphobia, sexism, among others. Finding meaning in spite of all this is one of many victories against oppression, small cracks in the firmament.
Serene Obscenity is a personal exploration of the self. Its relation to the body, to the collective, to the astral divine, and our incresingly digital existence. "Serene Obscenity" began merely as a phrase on the back of a 2017 art/writing zine called (SIC) World, but would eventually evolve into a coagulation of Kira's various expressive endeavors. It came to be an artistic outlook of the juxtaposition of the macabre with the ethereal. These two aesthetics might be seen as existing in opposition to one another, but the strength of emotions that they illicit are of equal measure. There is a clear darkness and bleakness to Kira's work, yet within this there is a fragility and appreciation for the beauty in nature and humanity. Increasingly this work has involved the conflict of humanity and its technologies.
Visual Art
Kira began her artistic life at a very young age, developing a fascination with traditional animation and comic book illustration. She pursused art throughout her years in high school, gaining skills in various mediums including acrylic paint, graphite, and water color. In her high school years she drew on her rudimentary skills of depicting the likenesses of super heroes and cartoon characters in order to learn how to render more realistic portraits. This technical ability and obsession with the human face would eventually become a crucial part of her more recent works. Immediately following high school, Kira began to dabble in pen drawing, which would ultimately become her preimary medium.
Despite her love of art, Kira decided not to pursue art in the academic realm, instead opting to study history and political science during her undergraduate years. However, this did not mean that she neglected her artistic passion. During undergrad, Kira worked as an illustrator for her university's newspaper, publishing over 40 cartoons between 2018 and 2019, which allowed her to further develop her abilities with the mighty Pigma micron pen. During these years she also was commissioned for various personal and professional pieces. During this time she began releasing her own music as Scoff, which saw Kira exploring the realms of digital photo manipulation in order to realize the visual aspect of that music project.
Kira now works primarily in acrylic paint, pen, and digital photo manipulation. She currently does all of the design, artwork, and layouts for her various music projects, with few exceptions.
Music
Music is Kira's daily passion and obsession, whether it is listening, creating, or researching, music consumes much of her free time in this life. Kira began playing guitar on and off at an early age with some minor instruction from her uncle. Kira's early interest in music was spurred by the differing tastes within her family, whether it was Frank Sinatra, Black Sabbath, or Lil Jon - Kira found something about all of it that was enjoyable. In college she joined the Pittsburgh based folk punk band, Predicting Earthquakes, serving as the bassist and occasional vocalist between 2016 and 2017.
Following this, Kira decided to chart her own course despite the lack of available collaborators and equipment, she began the noise project in Scoff with the fall 2017 release of the Vile Species demo which featured crude sound collages made in Audacity, with some live instrumentation as well. Over the course of the next five years, Scoff would go on to play a handful of live shows and release four full-length albums, a compilation of the afforementioned demo along with two EP's, a live album, and a split with Pittsburgh-based noise artist, Shield of Heracles. The project went through a gradual shift from minimalist drone to an ethereal harsh noise and dark ambient style made in the tradition of musique concrete. The final Scoff album was released in 2022 and was titled, The Eternal Weight of Night. Following this release, Kira decided to bring Scoff to an end, feeling that she had accomplished all that she wanted under that particular moniker.
In 2019, Kira started a new project which infused black metal with themes from the Legend of Zelda games, which she called Faron - named after the recurring forest area in Zelda games. She took on the pseudonym, Midna, after the princess of the twilight realm who is turned into an imp by the evil sorcerer, Zant. Faron self-released its debut EP, Interloper in fall 2020 and caught the attention of the prolific Grime Stone Records. GSR gave Interloper and its dungeon synth follow-up, These Woods Which Turn Flesh to Bone proper physical releases. Between 2022 and 2023 Kira released demos for several new musical projects, along with a full-length Faron record, World Beyond Grief, also released by GSR, before taking a brief hiatus during 2024. In 2025 she began releasing music for her newer projects, Æreality and She Willed the Rain
Kira is always thinking about new ways to express herself musically and has many different projects in the pipeline. If you want to follow her various projects, her Bandcamp page is the best place to do so. This can be found here.
