Let's start with Cyber Rag... tell me about it.

It's an electronic fanzine on floppy disk... I stole the idea from someone who was making an electronic magazine for the Amiga. It just came about because I had to do a master's project for ITP, and I wanted to integrate music, graphics and interactivity into a disk-based project.

What's in it?

Stuff about new technology, and games.

If and when CD-ROMs become more widespread, would you then switch to those?

Yeah, but because they don't work as a mechanism -- because of the way that you read information off of them, it could never really be fast enough. Even if they make triple-speed CD-ROm drives -- great, but what about all the people that bought double-speed and regular CD-Rom drives. There will never be a standard for that, and people will optimize different CD-ROMs for different speeds, and, there's just too many variables...

So, I think it'll be okay for a distribution format -- you know, people will use CD-ROMs -- they serve their purpose for distributing large amounts of information, and as resource databases. But they don't serve their purpose as distribution formats for interactive movies and games very successfully.

But they hold so much more information than floppy disks, it's kind of a trade-off, isn't it?

Well, lets say that you go to Florida, and you're taking the train. You could bring everything that you own in these huge bags. You'll have everything there, even though it'll make everything kind of slow and clumsy. Or you could just bring one bag with what you need. Which would you choose? It really depends on the particular person, or the product -- whatever the need is...

I have a skill where I can make use of a floppy disk. I've figured out ways to compress, or to manipulate the functions of Macromind Director, which I program in, so I can put lots of information on a disk. I don't expect everyone to do that, because there are certain projects out there that require large amounts of space, like big pictures and animation. For me, I use a floppy disk -- it works for me...

I don't think [CD-ROMs] will be abolished, but I just see more of a migration right straight into interactive TV, than I see people jumping on the CD-ROM bandwagon.

You do put a lot of stuff on a single floppy; do you try to achieve a balance between text, pictures and animation?

Well, a balance in terms of presentation. I want music in every scene, I want a picture to go with every frame, and there's going to be text on each screen, if you're in a story section...

But I have to make choice when I get to the end of a project. Like, "Oh my God, there's not enough room. I need more pictures here and less sound." So I make trade-offs. But generally I just sort of go to town using the way I know how to sample, and the way I build graphics. And then I see how much information is going to fit in there. Usually I get everthing I want into things, or I figure out a way to solve the problem, so I don't have to make too many sacrifices.

Did Cyber Rag sell well, compared to, say, Electronic Hollywood?

They probably sold the same. I mean, I made Electronic Hollywood after Cyber Rag, and more and more people were ordering my stuff at that time. And some people who back-ordered everything said, "I only have a black and white Mac," so they would only order Cyber Rag... Most of my sales are through mail order, and the mail order developed through the press...

People have interviewed me for magazines in the last three years, so it got the word out. So people people read about me in Mondo or whatever, some stupid magazine. And they would say, "Oh, I wanna get these disks." And [the magazines] would list my address, and they'd write to me.... Just this week I got letters from Madrid and Czechoslovakia, and Croatia. For whatever reason, the word is out there. And this has nothing to do with being online, either...

It's just people making Xeroxes of my press release, or writing about it, or telling people -- it's all word of mouth....I first got my name out there by sending disks to magazines... And they looked at it and said, "What the hell is this?" And they either threw it away or wrote something about it.

Were the reviews favorable?

Yeah. I don't think I've ever had a negative review of one of my electronic magazines

How many issues of Cyber Rag did you do?

Three, and three issues of Electronic Hollywood -- I'm on the third one now... I did Cyber Rag, and then I said, "Okay, I'm gonna do a color one. And I'm gonna change the name." I generally do everything in my life in threes...So when I got to Cyber Rag 3, I said, "Okay, I moved to L.A. I'm gonna do something in color -- Electronic Hollywood."

What else is different about it?

Or maybe, what else is the same about it? It's basically reviews of technology again; it's just more focused up... [There are] articles about technology, reviews of trade shows -- Home Media, SIGGRAPH -- big technology trade shows. I cover those, and I like to give all the information that MacWorld leaves out, like how to get in for free, what's really good, why you would or would not want to go to a particular conference... Like MacWorld, I would say, it's not worthwhile to go to any of the panels, unless you're searching for a basic knowledge. If you know a lot about technology already, you wouldn't sit in on the panels, you would just get a trade floor pass... I would call someone who had an exhibit on the floor, and ask if I could be considered one of their staff...

How did EH change over time?

It just probably got better by design, because I progressed as a person, doing interface design... Just a cleaner interface, a cleaner style. What really changed was my appropriation of equipment. People started giving me things...Someone gave me a digitizing board, so I was able to put video in them, instead of having illustrations.

Is there more to come?

No, because EH 3 is the third and last. I might do another electronic novel. And I could see doing a CD-ROM for a band, but I will not be doing any of my own personal projects. Because I have too many projects I can work on for money, and they're starting to cross over into stuff I would want to do anyway... I can't seem to do any of my own work anymore, because I'm just too busy doing everything else. So that's just a choice I made.

What are you working on now?

EH 3, I'm trying to finish it off; I'm working on a project for IBM; I'm working on a thing for a band, that I can't talk about; and I teach college.

When you say a "disk for a band," what do you mean?

It depends on the band. Like with the Billy Idol disk I did, it's kind of like an interactive press kit. For this other band, it's a bit more abstract. The way I look at the disk is like a video -- it's a production, I'm the producer. Where am I going to get the sound from, and the video, or the graphics, or whatever. I don't have time to make them anymore, so who's going to be the people that make them for me; I just sort of oversee them; or am I going to actually make the project. I just depends...

How did the Billy Idol project come about?

Billy went into a bookstore in L.A. that was selling my disks, and he bought one and took it home, and looked at it and went, "Wow, this is cool. I want one to go out with my next record." His management company called me and said, "Would you like to do a disk for Billy?" And I said, "How much?" And we talked about money, and I got really excited about the project.

How did you go about putting it together?

I had them give me all his current music videos to grab video from; I sampled his current record -- it wasn't even on CD at the time, they just gave me a master tape. And I hung out with Billy to find out what he wanted on his disk.

And what did he want?

Whatever I wanted to put on there, basically... He wanted to do stuff about cyberpunk...

The whole genre.

Yeah. So all the articles in there are written by writers from Wired and Mondo 2000.

A lot of people said the record really sucked. What did you think of it?

I'm not into that kind of music.

Are you happy with the way your disk came out?

Yeah, I think it's a good little project.

How would you compare your electronic magazines with other ones, like Blam, and all the little underground ones like Thunk!, and Mediamatic?

Mine was first. They can make the comparisons; they had something to derive from.

Of the ones that you've seen, which do you like, besides your own?

I like Blam, and that's about it...

Tell me about the Threat Man.

It's just an interactive art piece I did years ago... [It's about] color cycling, and perception of colors... I used to do a lot of gallery shows, and I wanted to do some quicker pieces, that fit on floppy as well, but were just sort of pretty, and neat -- that didn't have to be full-fledged magazines that take me months. Threat Man came out of a series of work I did that -- each thing took maybe a couple of days...

I've got two other pieces that are like it -- that are just short little animations, that are just sort of interactive art -- that's what I call them. Or they're just presentations. They were just for galleries, just for art, fun.

How did Ambulance come about?

I was approached by a writer in Los Angeles who wanted me to do something with their work...I didn't really read manuscripts, so I gave it to someone I knew who read for [Francis Ford] Coppola. And this script writer said, "God, Jaime, this is kind of cool. Why don't you read it?" and I read it, and thought it was okay.

We found that we could get some other people to work with us on it, that would help give it some name recognition. I got offered by a company to lend me money to develop it. So it sort of just happened by a bunch of people coming at me at once...

Is it hypertext?

No, it's hypermedia.

What's the difference?

What changes in there are the pictures more than the text. It's more of a -- it's a linear experience; you're just going forward in the story. It's not like hypertext, where you can branch out.

Why is New York City the place to be for this field?

It doesn't have earthquakes. And there's a lot of publishing going on in New York. You know, we have all the record companies, the magazines, the book companies. So therefore we have a lot of content floating around New York. People can drop business contracts and say, "I work for this book company, and I'd like to hire you to develop this project, and make it into an interactive work..."

I think there's more of that being thrown around in New York than any other city. That could just be my personal experience, but from what I read, and from what I hear from other people, New York is kind of a melting pot of content. And that's why it's the place to be -- because all this interactive stuff is based on content, not technology, like they seem to think in San Francisco, I guess...

Where were you born?

In Hollywood, and grew up in Los Angeles.

How about San Francisco? What did you do there?

I guess I just evolved in San Francisco... I mostly worked in graphic design. I didn't get much interactive work out there. I was a little ahead of my time when I got there with my degree from ITP. So I just sort of did my own thing, and supported myself doing desktop publishing... I like San Francisco. Beautiful city.

Would you choose New York over all three?

If I was forced to make a choice, I would probably choose New York, but as it is now, I plan to own houses in all three cities!

What's a cyber-slacker?

I'm a cyber-slacker. Someone perhaps of the twentysomething generation who doesn't take too many things too seriously, who sort of plays around with the technology for reasons other than just making wads of cash. Just pure, unadulterated fun on computers -- people that do that, and there's a lot of people.

All your stuff is on the Mac. Why?

Because it has a standard palette and resolution from Mac to Mac. If I were to make a disk for the PC, I'd have to be concerned with the different monitors people have -- VGA or EGA systems. I can't program or animate on a PC, which is another good reason -- they don't have the program I use to develop with, for the PC, yet.

You're working for IBM now. Are you going to start doing things for PCs?

Yeah, I'm going to start porting my stuff over to the PC. But I wouldn't necessarily market any of my older stuff for the PC, just because I don't feel like it.

Someone else told me that if the true history of this field is ever written, they will have to take into account all the drugs that were done by the people who made these things. Do you think that's true?

Not really, I don't think so. I think that drugs play a small part in a lot of this stuff, compared to what happened in the 1980s. If you compare the outrageous use of drugs in the media and film and music industries in the eighties, people have toned down from that period of time. This is the 90s, where people are, like, taking care.