KA: Pussy, King of the Pirates.
Kathy Acker: "Have you ever had anything as big as an 1100 between your legs, Rosie????"...
RosieX: "Hmmm, can't say I have, not lately no Kathy"...
KA: Well the damn things brakes seized up on me, shit, I nearly lost it, I love that bike, I'm a little wiped out but go ahead, I have to be up real early to go to New York in the morning.
RX: Why are you heading off to New York so early ?
KA: I have to do a speech at a college in New York a speech and a read, they are flying me in for the ] day, so its one of those things.
RX: You've been so busy lately..doing a lot of readings and more recently a panel in San Francisco where you live..
K.A: Yeah I just did this great panel with the Krokers. Arthur Kroker is a theorist in the field of virtual reality..
RX: So I heard you got kicked of America On-Line, what did you do?
K.A: I was on-line with a friend of mine we were a little drunk and I can't remember what the hell we did. My memory is that Jenny had never been on-line before, so I remember saying oh okay I'll show you what its like to be on-line, although AOL is so boring. Of course most of the chat rooms were filled and I said oh our next best bet is the MTV chat room, not many people go there, so we went there and I don't think we did anything wrong, I don't know...I think we asked if there were any dykes in the room, that's my only memory and there was some guy who started pestering us, and Jenny recalls asking if we could suck someone's prick...but I don't recall that.
RX: Sounds like normal drunk on-line chat to me
KA: Exactly, hardly anything out of the normal..
RX: Its hard to understand the American need for control when the impression we get over here is that the right to free speech is constitutionally protected.
KA: laughs Are you asking why Americans are so moralistic? I dunno you guys must have got some good ones and we were left with the bad ones, Americans have always been like that, nothing changes
RX: I had heard a rumour that you were kicked off-line for endless rants about masturbation.
KA: I dunno, what the hell, I doubt it was that improper.
RX: Did they simply delete your account without informing you of what was going on?
KA: No what they did is they deleted software and didn't delete my account. So when I tried to figure out what was going on, and why I was still being billed for an account I wasn't using and they kept me on the phone for hours talking "techie talk" with no results, and working 14 hour days doing all this stuff, I finally said "ahhh go to hell all of you, just take me off the damn service".
RX: Doesn't sound like a positive introduction to the net, not your experiences with AOL anyway?
KA: Yeah, well, AOL (hmpf) I wanna get on the net directly, friends like R.U Sirius and Jude Milhon (St. Jude) have been telling me how, I'm not that technical you know, AOL was the first service I ever used, so for someone like me its gonna take a few hours of manoeuvring to go direct.
RX: Its the way to go!
KA: Sure, otherwise you are just being policed by these creeps.
RX: Ahh the "thought police" on the net..
KA: Well they are everywhere, not just on the net, it gets me really angry. I am still very angry at AOL, they invaded my house as far as I am concerned they went into my home/computer and took the damn software off, it was like being raped or something.
RX: Not that bad..
KA: (silence)
RX: The net is far from utopian..
KA: At the moment it sure is.
RX: Do you think you will create spaces for yourself on the net, where you fill comfortable? Maybe you'd like hanging out in women only spaces for example..
KA: I've always done my own thing haven't I? I'm no separatist, I guess I hang with freaks...
RX: A lot of people suggest this form of technology is inherently democratic.
KA: Bhwaaaa! Oh come on, the world we live in! A lot of people here are talking how much they can police the net, in comparison to that future I guess it's relative, I don't think that's utopia but it's better than potential censorship and policing of the net.
RX: Do you think about strategies when you're on-line. Your friend St.Jude likes to fight with words..
KA: I just do my books. I do what I do. I don't think about strategies. If a service like AOL kicks me off I just think fuck 'em. You know...If we are talking about strategies and I haven't even thought of net strategies yet I think its best to be as open as possible and just do what you do and let people make of it what they want.
RX: Ahhh, books what's the new one you are working on?
KA: Pussy, King of the Pirates.
RX: (laughs)
KA: (laughs)
RX: Cool title...I like pirates.
KA: Me too.
RX: You're such a prolific writer, how many books is it now?
KA: About 9.
RX: The titles include...
KA: All of them!!...hmm, let me see, there was the Trilogies, "The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula", "I Dreamt I was a Nymphomaniac Imagining" & "The Adult Love Life of Talouse Latrec, by Talouse Latrec" - that was the trilogy. Then there was "Kathy goes to Haiti". Then, "Blood and Guts in High School", then "Great Expectations". Then "My Death, My Life: Pierre Palo Passolini" then there was "Empire of the Senseless", then "Immemorium to Identity and my mother Demonology", then "Hannibal Lecter my Father", but something's been forgotten there. Heh, I feel like I am taking some kind of test..
RX: Well, I have to make sure you are the real Kathy Acker. :-) The first introduction I had to you was Blood and Guts in High School, and I wasn't so aware of it then but I am now or I am convinced of it now, that your style is very hypertext. The way subjects, images imaginings are linked or should I say hyperlinked?
KA: Most people know of me, cos of Blood and Guts. I agree with you about my work being like hypertext its extremely hypertext'd. I know a lot of the people designing web sites and some hypertext authors are making room for me on the WWW cos they know how well my work would fit into that environment.
RX: Do you consider or do you refer to yourself/work as hypertext now that there's a name for it.
KA: I do and I don't. You know in a way I write like that, I take stuff and I put it here and there, I write the way WWW people do but I use notebooks, I still and have always used cut and paste but I think my stuff is a little funkier than a lot of hypertext available material at the moment on the web. I am not sure about that but I will know for sure when I go direct!
RX: Does the net offer further expansion for your work
KA: Sure!! I have been talking with friends and it would work real well with this little book I have based on the new novel. What we have done is taken a chapter and used some graphics/ pictures everything, and I'd really like to see it on the net, eventually you can do real time visuals and music on the net that I couldn't do alone outside the net by myself. I think you can go way farther mixing media, its perfect for the sort of stuff I do. The hypertext stuff I have seen doesn't mix sound and graphics, I am sure there are sites that do but I haven't had an opportunity to see them yet.
RX: What web sites have you been visiting?
KA: I can't get on directly which is a pain. I mean AOL was so boring I didn't really find anything that turned me on...friends show me the Web and it's kind of a priority for me at the moment to investigate more of this stuff.
RX: Generally WEB sites are collective ventures unless one person has a lot of time to devote to the site, you know authoring, maintenance, renewal. Do you like working in a collective situation?
KA: I don't like working with other writers much,. its kind of my own private little space but I like working with other kind of artists a great deal.
RX: You haven't experienced a lot of the net yet, have you.
KA: I am a complete virgin when it comes to this stuff I admit it. St.Jude took me out shopping one day and said,'Kathy, what you need is a modem, grrrl!'
RX: Jude is a techno junkie.
KA: You're not kidding, but then I have been addicted to the damn thing since I got on too. For about a month now that's all I have done is been stuck in front of this machine..I'm obsessed, I work on my books, I do my readings, I go for bike rides but the minute I am back inside that door, what do I do but turn on that fucking computer. I'm starting to dream about this stuff.
RX: Do you like technology?
KA: I never thought about it before, the only thing I think which counts as technology before this is my motor cycle..
RX: In your writing you have played around with role switching?
KA: twitching?
RX: switching
KA: twitching? I like twitching better..:-)
RX: Okay then, in your writing you've played around with role twitching, have you used the net to experiment with twitching gender roles and personality, have you had much response from others on-line, as far as you know they may very well be doing the same thing?
KA: I'm real curious about sex on the net,. cos I don't get that yet. I always think of role playing as being something your not. I don't role play like that probably cos I don't have a strong sense of who I am, I basically have no sense of who I am,. so I don't role play I'm just plain ol' schizophrenic me or something, its not like my on-line or real life personality comes out from a centred identity...
RX: Sure, but I wouldn't think you'd adopt another identity or persona or enjoy playing the pseudonym game on-line why would you wanna be someone else?
KA: It made me feel really uncomfortable, AOL said what other names are you going to use on-line and I said, "huh what do you want my stuffed animals names?" so I chose some of them and they seemed happy, not that I saw much point in it. With my new account on Eworld I am just Acker, so I guess if people wanted to find me they could, it doesn't bother me. People have bugged me in real life but its not a problem on-line not yet anyway.
RX: What are the possibilities for anarchy and radicalism on the net.
KA: Man, there are amazing things that are going to happen. I can't tell you some of them, I don't know much about Australia but in the US we have this huge overall monolithic government and the one way WE get away with being free and try as best to avoid the McDonalds culture, is that anarchists go unnoticed. Its the only freedom that's here. There's no freedom among the liberals or the conservatives, and I am sure the parallel exists on the net in the same way as in real life. A huge organisation like AOL with 200,000 members simply can not be controlled, even if they do throw a few people off.
RX: What will anarchy on the net be like, will you transpose a lot of past radical ideas and tactics?
KA: I am sure that both old and new ways will be effective. Once you use a new medium you do it different ways, in fact every time I write a book I do it a different way. I am learning a lot about doing things differently, this great woman Freddie Bear designed this little book that's coming out, and she'd like to design a web site which is touch sensitive, silk screens which you can touch and they will lead to new words and links.
RX: A lot of your work is thought of in terms of being a lot of different things, theatre, dance, opera can you incorporate all these different styles into or onto the net?
KA: I don't think we know what the possibilities of the net are yet. I think what's happening is that we really should start concentrating on developing a new language for this thing. Its most peculiar its a big living mind.
RX: A meme!
KA: Yeah it is, no one has even started to explore all the psychic stuff that goes around it. I work a lot with dreams now and when I started to spend all my spare time with the computer my dreams stopped, and I thought hmm what's the connection with that and having this living mind in my house, very weird.
RX: Well, I think a lot of what happens with groups who are interested in those sorts of subjects are at present marginalised, I think with continued net expansion we'll start to hear more about topics such as dreams, magic etc.
KA: I think that's true but I don't know what will happen.
RX: Do you think that the net will become another medium where you will be accused of trying to shock people?
KA: I was never ever interested in shocking people. People got shocked but that was their business. People have always had a weird relationships dealing with women's bodies. Men and women, Id say men more so, they are so bloody uptight, they just don't hear anything sometimes.
RX: When do you get time to dream?
KA: You know I talk about it in my work more and more, like tonight we were using this book, Three Steps on a Ladder of Writing. I don't think theory disqualifies the dream experience.
RX: Have you got a wicked dream you'd like to share?
KA: Nah, lately I haven't had time to dream. I think I am working way to much.
RX: What do you think about cyberspace hype, what reality is being bent, manipulated or extended when you're inside the machine?
KA: No I have never believed reality was that rational or that predictable. I don't think reality is set,
reality is living, its constantly changing. I think the net is cool, its almost exactly the same feeling as
when you are working psychically, or when you're meditating. What we do on the net others can do
without all that equipment. Its like flying.
RX: I've heard that people generally have more psychic or spiritual experiences as they get older, perhaps the net works as a catalyst for such things to occur. I've also heard that it's a human trait to resolve psychic and spiritual matters with visceral things before one dies, this isn't religious, just a fact of becoming one with the planet, Gaia whatever, rather than remaining a hollow blob.
KA: I think there is something to that, you're not as driven by things like LUST. When I was 23 I couldn't see or think of anything else (laughs)..
RX: So no net sex yet?
KA: Do people get off on this, I've heard its possible, I just got to get myself a direct connection!
RX: Do you view the net as pornographic?
KA: I think that about everything, I am constantly thinking about sex. I think sex when I am on the net,. my machine is a big ol' toy and I don't know all the aspects to it or about it yet,. but sure sex is one of them and like everything else I will explore that part of it to. Sex to me is like hunger, and I am damn hungry most of the time.
RX: Do you think much of the relationship between sexuality and the machine?
KA: No, its not a machine to me its more like a living mind. I am not interested in the machine parts, I think the same way about the motor cycle, I think of it as being alive, I have two bikes I got a Virago 1100 and a 750.
RX: I know you very much like the work of VNS MATRIX, they have been known to say that "the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix" following on from what you have just said, I dunno if you'd agree with that statement.
KA: VNS are so cool. I connected with them a while ago I am so impressed by their work, but I wouldn't agree with that statement no. I never thought of the connection between the machine and me as being clitoral. Right now what does it feel like...it doesn't feel clitoral, the clitoris to me is this kind of direct little burning sensation between my legs, this is just me, but its kinda deeper and more general than direct. Everybody's body is different. The net can be like an orgasm but at the moment I guess I'd still say it was like flying and having lots of fun. But I distrust it to, sometimes I feel like its a mind eating me. I have lots of theories about the ravenous nature of my machine, especially when I got it and it kept wanting more and more ram and other bits and pieces, hmmm, I have to be careful it doesn't devour me. I imagine the computer getting fatter and fatter and not allowing me to dream ever again and sucking out my thoughts.
RX: Could your machine replace a lover?
KA: No Way! Net sex might be okay but I doubt even that could replace my motor cycle or a lover. You really should get a big bike..
RX: Hmmm, yeah :) Is there a rise in poetry in America at the moment?
KA: I'd say there was a lull. Spoken word maybe on the rise but I don't know if that's the same thing as what people used to refer to as poetry. There was a big spoken word phenomena last year, I think that some of my work will be reproduced spoken word anyway on say CD-ROM. I got two records coming out with other people. One of those might come out on CD-ROM, I speak text and a band Tribe 8 play and a guy called Ralph Carnie who used to play with Tom Waits and his band and myself kind of all jam together.
RX: Do you go to clubs
KA: Nah, I go to a favourite cafe, if I go anywhere it might be RED DORA'S or something..I don't generally hang out. I have so much work I can't see straight, its getting a bit ridiculous actually. One more reason why I like the computer is that I can turn it on say at 1 or 2 in the morning and communicate with people, its better than waking your friends up at that time.
RX: Can you work too hard - does it stifle the creativity of your work?
KA: Workin 'seven days a week, 12hrs a day is to much. I am gonna get a long break in a few months, maybe after my book about pirates girls, I will take a well deserved sea voyage or something..:) this book will be really good..you know I am hoping to come over to Australia soon, there is a group of people up in Brisbane working on it,. I don't know if they got the money together yet, it was gonna be this summer.
RX: You must be making a lot of money.
KA: Fuck I am not! Why do you think I am working so hard!
taken from geekgirl