Josephine Starrs I Was A Paranoid Corporate Artist In The Belly Of The Beast [[you’re invading my computer]] The day I began my artist residency at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), Xerox sacked 10 percent of its workers worldwide. “Is the company not doing too well financially?” I asked my group leader. I was told Xerox was doing better than ever...actually the corporation has a turnover bigger than the whole US entertainment industry. U.S. companies just seem to be in the grip of downsizing fever at present...they say it’s an efficiency thing...it also makes them look tough, and the shareholders love that. [[my flatmate is trying to get rid of me]] Palo Alto boasts some of the most expensive real estate on the planet, but I was staying in a cheap and cheesy motel at the trashy end, just over the road from the trailer park...still expensive for me, since the Australian dollar is worth about a piece of string at present. I have a website () where people anonymously send me their paranoid thoughts...the paranoia was steadily coming in when I was living in Silicon Valley. [[my computer is talking about me]] Tech culture and car culture rule in the valley, and walking to PARC along Page Mill then Mountain View, past the slick corporate buildings surrounded by manicured lawns and hedges, the semiotic messages were obvious. I disliked especially the corporations that forced me to walk on the road...walking on wet lawns was no fun, but it was better than being hit by some young software designer in their new silver Pontiac. [[why do they all hate me?]] “So you’ve gone to work for Big Daddy Mainframe?” my daughter said to me on the phone. I replied no, I’m a spy, infiltrating the databanks of BDM...Remember the cyberfeminist manifesto?...yeah, whatever. Corporate artists have to sign NDAs (Nondisclosure Agreements) as soon as we walk through PARC’s doors, so conversations at Silicon Valley parties often went something like: What do you do?... I work at Interval, but I’m not allowed to tell you what I’m working on, how about you?... I work at PARC...can’t tell you either.... Nice weather we’re having”...etc. [[my dead grandma sees me masturbating]] Invitation to typical Silicon Valley party: “Gathering of the Tribe... This Saturday yes another holiday has arrived...Time for Halloween in Spring, Come as the new you..shedding all old beliefs, judgments, and commitments that no longer serve you...releasing the true you. 6 p.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday. Celebrating the Mystery of Life... Food, song, and dancing all night... Dancing floor addition by the roaring fire, Smoking room Upstairs on an upper balcony, Hot tubbing not to be forgotten.” [[the whole room is looking at me]] PARC is famous for it’s “ubiquitous computing” research, and I was hoping to be electronically tagged along with the best of them—but it seems the big brother implications have put the researchers working at PARC off using the technology. The only manifestation of “ubicom” I saw was a hallway fountain whose rate of water flow indicated whether Xerox shares were up or down. “Augmented reality” is the buzzword in computer-interface research these days. [[they are reading my mail...i know they are]] Silicon Valley is saturated with stories of startups making their fortunes—gold rush mentality—but without the wild abandon of the west. PARC won’t even allow alcohol on the premises, and it’s not PC to flirt. But it’s a great place for bright young geeky smart things. It is assumed by most that technology will save the planet, that the valley is utopia, and if the rest of the world become good capitalists and embrace the new technology-enhanced lifestyle they can reach utopia also. Even the homeless in Palo Alto push hitech baby trolleys and wear discarded Gortex. [[i’m not wearing clean underwear]] So I roamed the empty corridors of PARC at night, feeling like the guy from the movie Solaris. I was working with these images of deformed foetuses in jars I’d illicitly shot in a medical museum in Berlin, making large color prints, wondering if my obsession with these little mutants had anything to do with the scary feelings I got passing by the many biotech corporation buildings every day. If I wanted to stay overnight at PARC, I could haul a few of the ubiquitous blue corduroy beanbags into my office to make a bed. Very cosy in a seventies sort of way. [[my neighbor is psychic]] PARC is known for the ones that got away: the mouse and graphical user interface were developed there, but Xerox never got a financial piece of that. This might explain the rigorous patent—charge—sue mentality there today...I never came up with an idea that was worth patenting. [[everybody is sucking on my intellect]]