Series curator Kathy High conducted this telephone interview with Kristin Lucas in May, 1997.

Yeah, okay. I wanted to introduce a multimedia machine which could be used as routinely as a bank machine, only with the kind of escapism that interactions with arcade games and the World Wide Web provide. And I stuck with the idea of a bank transaction, loosely, because it has a beginning and an end. But within HOST I play the role of the user and also the system operator. I play the role of the user, but I'm also the player or the competitor with the machine. And while I was creating HOST I read books like MASTERING PAC-MAN and THE ROBOTS ARE HERE to develop a strategy for interaction. And I have placed HOST a little bit further into the future so that I could incorporate multimedia as kind of a familiar transaction like a bank kiosk would offer.

So, then the role of system operator also becomes the person who is answering the phone for customer service questions. Like if you have an E-mail account and you have a problem, you have to call someone to understand your computer. In a way, you're trying to learn about your relationship or make changes so that you can be more compatible with your computer. And so the idea is that the system operator is also a therapist, and at the same time the idea of the title HOST implies that the system operator is also the host of an online talk show and broadcasting this session throughout the World Wide Web. The system operator is multi-tasked and therefore interacting with users all over the world simultaneously, so it's not always clear that the system operator is talking to the person who is the user at the time. They're kind of answering a lot of questions at the same time.

Right, in fact, you can hear the system operator talking at the same time that the questioner is, so oftentimes it's as if the technician isn't paying attention. There's this kind of overlap as if her attention is really diverted.

And then there's also the idea that, in mediated spaces, like this we have to kind of figure out a way to tune in to what we need from them. I mean, like with Internet chat rooms having a discussion, a virtual discussion, in a room where there are voices all over, you have to be able to pick out the one that is consistent with what you're trying to get to. So, you can really get lost in there, and I was trying to parallel that kind of a conversation.

Did this tape come out of hours on the Internet, or a lot of video-game playing, or using home shopping channels, or all of the above?

You know, it comes out of all of the above, but not necessarily by my using these virtual environments. I suppose it comes from just feeling bombarded by the sense that they're everywhere around me -- that I'm just bumping into them wherever I go and I have to find my path in between them. So, I'm trying to understand how to get into those spaces -- in and out of those spaces -- which are kind of stifled by this pervasiveness of mediated spaces.

Well, the character that you play that approaches the kiosk with the problem, that asks for the therapist, does seem to be a kind of frustrated participant in all of these systems. First of all, and maybe these are a couple of things you could address, there are the two different images of you as you're approaching the kiosk, right? There's the one that has got the keypad in front of her occasionally and is sort of full screen, and then there's also the four-quadrants self, the screen being split into four quadrants. Can you just talk a little bit about the choices you made in terms of how to present those two images and shift between the two?

Well, initially I was thinking a lot about the idea of surveillance cameras and the constant watching, as if you're sitting behind a desk and you're viewing a space which you're not able to see. You are not able to monitor an entire space with your own eyes, so you're using . . . they have developed systems where you can look at multiple monitors that change every few seconds to another shot. So, the idea is that . . . I think I have something written here that I could read to you: "As I indulge in a virtual conversation about a troublesome relationship, the session instantly becomes an amalgamation of daytime television and tabloid, wherein the surveillance camera becomes the eye of the media." It's also kind of engaging "see-you-see-me" technology, where we've also become the eye of the media on places like the World Wide Web. It's so complicated right now.

Right. Well, that kind of fragmentation of the image of your face also points to the more psychological aspect of what's going on: the kind of alienation and displacement of oneself, you know, that there are these many selves that are interacting. So, I think it speaks to the media that you're talking about, but then it also goes back to this content that you've chosen, which is that things are slightly dysfunctional for the character as she approaches the kiosk. It's like you said: "You got the power upgrade, but it didn't quite work." I think that's an interesting choice. Now, when you made this, were you working up at Owego at the Experimental Television Center?

Some of the footage was shot in Owego. The system operator footage was shot with the soundtrack from a Superbowl pregame. And then part of the video was shot here in my own home, where I created my own small kiosk, just so that I could have separation between the camera and my face, so I could find a plane between there. And then I went up, I live in Park Slope, and I shot some footage on the street, and then I keyed myself into that footage.

As the narrative goes on in the tape, things begin break down, and there seem to be interruptions
. . . I mean, we see that there are these three different signals that we're looking at: the technician that's addressing the problem, and then the two images of the participants who are asking the kiosk to provide this therapist, etc. But then there are these other images from games and from television cartoons and different animations that start to creep in and take over. And I was just wondering if you could speak about the interruption?

Okay. We design machines to perform tasks the way that we would like them to perform, only we try to design them without the human margin of error. But those errors are inherent because we're programming things.

The piece feels game-like anyway because of the technician. It's almost like you have a jockey outfit on, right? I mean it's like a disc jockey? And you're kind of orchestrating this other playing field, but then suddenly there are images of computer games, and cartoons of you, but then other characters fighting battles and becoming these really aggressive protagonists. Were there things that you were thinking of when you choose those images?

Well, I made a video that was called WATCH OUT FOR INVISIBLE GHOSTS before I made HOST. This video was structured like an interaction with a virtual game where I had used soundtracks from "Gladiators," children's cartoons, and sound from video games. I was surrounded by cameras, and the camera jumped every time that a joystick fired off a shot. Someone else was playing the game while I was doing it, but I was in this space which was full of media icons, rival action heroes, and I was kind of engaging in this virtual game, in this virtual space with these characters who were never present, and so it was also in this very isolated virtual environment. And my idea of using a video game is that we get into this same kind of space, this place where we kind of lose sense, or lose the boundaries of where our lives stop and where we begin to engage with media.

I'm interested in the language that's used when playing with machines, and how we've kind of chosen these words to mirror our lives, but then we still attach this romance to them.

Yeah, there's an odd point in the tape when you start talking about how you got the upgrade and you thought everything would be better, but then it's not.

And that relates also to my own body as a woman, or my experience with understanding my body as a woman, and understanding technology or having technology integrated into my life in different kinds of ways.

I know you've been doing some performance work, too. The tapes themselves are really performative. HOST has this very performative element, because you're actually participating in it as all the players. Do you see this work feeding indirectly to your performances or vice versa? I was just curious about the relationship.

Yeah, well, I have always performed for my videos and I'm interested in performing with the equipment that I use because the content of my work is the idea of the process of producing and also being a participant, using media devices to produce imagery. And so I'm interested in my role as producer because I am multi-tasked like a computer, and it's all about timing. And I've been working on a performance in order to kind of introduce the "live" element of multimedia. Within the performance I use multimedia as content and dismantle it, because I think that we do have a certain romanticism with it, and that when we witness multimedia we see it kind of drained of all of the work that goes into it, and drained of the technical problems. And I want to highlight those problems to drain multimedia of its mystique, really. So, I'm constantly asking the viewer to pull their attention away from the hypnotic black box and to look at the person who's producing the images, the manipulator, the person in control there.

And I think the other thing that's good is the glitches and other things that are constantly a part of the whole process that you keep re-introducing. This way of going between . . . and also the low-tech equipment that you work with. I remember the electric guitar that you used when you did the performance at the Museum of Modern Art. It's like you're working with things that are on the level of toys, so that there is this low-tech aspect.

Yeah, in a way it also feeds back on the idea of encouraging women to see these machines as tools, to bring things down to tool level. And I think that at that point we're able to maybe influence the direction of our use of technology. And so, the script is loaded with technical errors and problems that are built in, and it's also largely improvised so that I really don't have a sense of the ultimate performance.

It becomes really approachable that way.

Yeah, that's definitively a part of what I'm trying to do: to advocate this as a possibility for women, and to be a bit subversive with the materials.

Yeah, I think it's successful that way. I know the students that I brought to see it -- who I'm working with at NYU -- they're really excited about the possibilities that this presented them. So, it had that kind of stimulus, I think.

Oh, good.

Is there anything that you want to add to this?

Well, you know, it's just hard because I feel like there is so much and I've not had a lot of time to really sit down with it, and I start thinking that there are certain things that are really important to talk about and then someone will ask me something that is also really important, but I don't know where to begin. So, I could tell you something about Atlantic City, but that's the only other thing I can imagine.

Sure, yeah. Why not?

Well, when I was editing HOST, I pulled a string of all-nighters, where I was kind of creating the same space that I was dealing with as content, which is an isolated multimedia space where I'm situated in front of a monitor; only I had headphones and I was working on editing this. And then I just started thinking about this trip that I had taken to Atlantic City, and about how certain mediated spaces like casino environments just go on and on. You never really feel a sense of time passing. It's just amazing how controlled those spaces are, with the lighting and the temperature and the sound levels never changing, always the same day in and day out. This time passes so unnoticed. It was kind of amazing to me. But anyway, I just felt that it kind of informed the video. It was another mirror within the piece -- like, here I am creating the same space that I'm using.

The video has this kind of self-reflexiveness that does keep going back and back and back in on itself. The tape is very interesting that way. So, it's good to hear about these other levels of it, too. Because the tape functions that way as you're watching it, and then to imagine these other processes that you went through in the creation of it just kind of furthers it. Well, thanks. This has been really great.

Yeah, OK. Well, I really appreciate your insight on the piece, too.

Oh well, thanks.

You know, I just feel like the women who have watched HOST have really understood it much more than the men, even though I feel like I have an audience of men and women equally. I feel like the women hone in on it right away.

That's interesting. Well, I think the relationship you have to the body as a woman in this piece is really strong. And I think that's what's really important to keep in mind while watching it. That's a really interesting dialogue for me, too . . . and for any woman. And I think that's something that's really good to put out there. So, I'm really glad you made the tape.

Oh, thank you.