Patty Chang and Prema Murthy are reinventing performance art by filtering their work through a variety of media. They use performance as the starting point for larger explorations of how media creates meaning. In photos, films, and live performances, Patty Chang's work forces our eyes to dwell in anxious, uncomfortable, yet humorous moments. In one performance, HD (1999), we see her explore the limits of consumption. A dozen hotdogs hang out of her mouth and spill all over her lap. The one-two gender punch of Slit (1999) is a close-up photo showing a scar on her arm that, when squeezed between two folds of surrounding skin, looks exactly like a vagina. Prema Murthy plays with the whore/goddess divide in Bindigirl, her Web site inspired by Internet pornography. She cast herself as the character Bindigirl, naked except for red bindi dots which cover her genitals. As Bindigirl, Murthy uses sexual photos of her self and live online chat and video conferencing to question traditional racial and gender roles. Our conversation ranged from issues of consumerism, exoticism, and gender to the evolution of art, timelessness, and multiple layers within performance.

Q: What does multimedia mean?

Patty Chang: What do you mean by multimedia anyway?

Q: Well, that's the question…

Chang: Performance can now only exist within other mediums or combined with other mediums so by default performance has become a multimedia form.

Prema Murthy: There are different types of performance. There's theatrical, there's performance art, there's doing readings, etc. I think Patty and I are similar in trying to capture the ephemerality of performance as we create images or Web sites based on our live work. I think this is sort of a new wave of dealing with performance that's just happened recently.

Patty: I don't think its been happening recently. I think it's always been evolving. Somebody asked me, "What do you think of this new rebirth of performance?" I guess in a way it's true that it's been reborn, but it's always been around.

Murthy: Well, since the eighties there has been a twist to it because new mediums have evolved which weren't available during the 60s. I think combining new mediums for me - doing a Web site and online performance, inserting myself in a chatroom as a character and using that as a performance space - is something a little bit new.

Q: Where is the line between you and your character Bindigirl?

Murthy: The Bindigirl character is one dimension of my personality. It's my sexy, come hither side. This one dimension is exactly what I comment on with my Web site. For Bindigirl, I wanted to go to the extreme of positioning myself as a sexualized object. With online pornography, the audience only perceives one aspect of the body on display. For me it's problematic when people only see that one side of who you are - this pigeonholes you. The audience forgets or doesn't care that there's a person underneath.

Q: How do you use technology to sort and filter your performances?

Chang: I don't think of photographs, videos or film as a second-generation performance. I always tailor my performances specifically to the medium I'm using. I don't use different media to simply document my performance work. I use the differences in media to force the viewer into a specific way of looking at a piece, to try and bring out something specific from the live performance. In the live version of the performance piece Fountain, there's a mirror on the ground in a public bathroom and I pour water on it. I kneel down and drink from the mirror like it's a virtual pond. The video of the piece is different. It features a close-up of my face. I turned the mirror sideways and kissed it, so that it's just my face kissing the mirror. It's kind of disorienting for the viewer to see this specific element rather than the entire scene of the performance. In the video then, it's like I'm looking into a mirror on the wall and drinking my own image, kissing my reflection. The use of video distorts the original action.

Murthy: For me, with my online stuff, it's about exploring the boundaries between myself and my character Bindigirl. If I'm in character, am I really participating in this chat? Am I a real person? Are my audience members disguising themselves as well? It's more of a conceptual thing. Also, on the Web you can really focus in on what you want the viewer to see. You definitely have more control. When you're doing a live non-Web performance the audience can be looking anywhere, at your feet, at someone else in the crowd; they can be listening to your words but not really seeing your actions.

Q: How do you feel the notion of consumption is touched upon in your works? Prema, you seem to directly approach this with the opportunity for financial exchange. Your viewers can pay to chat with "Bindigirl" or buy products with Bindi logos or pay to watch "Bindigirl" live on Wednesday nights. Patty, I think that your food and overstuffed mouth speaks volumes...

Chang: For me it's abundance, over-indulgence. The grotesqueness of what is too much.

Murthy: With the exchange of money, I am playing with the idea of consumption and consumerism. This is bound to the idea of wanting to own something, of how people feel that they can put down their dollars and own someone's culture, sexuality, or a piece of who they are.

Q: How do you feel about this recent surge in consumption of Asian culture - in fashion, music, and makeup? Prema, do you feel that this can affect the viewer's interaction with your work? Someone can come to your Web site having watched Madonna and wanting to wear bindis and be thinking of an entirely different Bindigirl. By blurring the lines of the meaning of the bindi - to place red dots over you and your models' private parts - what does this do in terms of reassigning meaning?

Murthy: The idea of the bindi originated to symbolize the sacred third eye. It also came to signify women's marital status in India. But even now the idea of the bindi for Indian girls has become totally decorative. Back in the day it was made with red powder. Now they're made from disposable stickers you can stick on. So, even in India the meaning has been distorted. There's been another layer of distortion added through its co-opting by pop media and pop culture. Now the bindi has become this trendy fad but women in Queens who wear bindis still get harassed. There's this whole gang of people who call themselves "dot busters" and they harass these women and commit violent crimes against them. In Bindigirl, the round circles I placed over body parts was to play with this idea of what is the sacred and what can be bought. For example, in an art gallery, a red dot by a piece of art it means its been sold.

Q: How do you view the future connection between using diverse mediums and culture? How do you see this evolving? How do you envision your future projects? What media do you envision will be used five years from now? A continuation of the same? Does gender have any impact on medium?

Chang: It depends on who invents the new thing. Everything is always evolving, changing.

Murthy: I'll continue using new technology as a tool and continue working with technology and performance together. As for gender and what mediums one chooses, technology has offered me more options for creating environments than if I was painting or sculpting. You can create a space online and you don't physically have to build it. As technology evolves my work will evolve with it.

Q: Is the placing of the one term "performance" or "computer arts" on your work confining? Do you like the fluidity in someone assigning meaning to what you do? How do you see multimedia as changing art and progressing how we view art and art institutions?

Murthy: I don't know if I feel pigeonholed by people trying to identify what I do and putting a name on it. This is especially true in America because naming something is one way to sell it. I use the computer and digital technology as a tool and I mix it together with performance and print. Nobody has come up with a name for that yet. They call it "new media" or whatever but that doesn't really describe what I am doing. I think artists are in a weird place right now because many of us use different media and art dealers haven't found a way to name it yet. Institutions are just beginning to commission Web work. It's been a struggle because people still don't recognize it as a legitimate art form. People have only recently people begun thinking of video and installation as legitimate art forms. You're starting to see more and more of it. This year's Venice Biennale was all about video and installation. People are just starting to feel comfortable with it.

Chang: It's about how cultures understand images. People can relate better to a moving image or a video because our culture is so consumed with TV, video, and film.

Murthy: New mediums are making art a little more accessible, widening the audience. I think that a lot of people feel more intimidated by a room full of paintings as opposed to a room of television monitors. And clicking through a Web site makes people comfortable because they can do it from the comfort of their own home. All of this brings a level of intimacy, understanding, or "comfortableness" to art.

Q: What is your next thing? Is it a secret? Do you want it in print?

Murthy: In the fall I am going to the Ars Electronica, a digital electronic arts festival in Austria. I will be doing a performance there. I am also working on an installation using mini triggering.

Q: For those who are not technologically advanced (like me) what does that mean?

Murthy: Mini triggering is a way for the viewer to activate video and sound in an environment.

Chang: I just had a show at Ace Gallery in Los Angeles in July and a show in Paris in the fall. Next year I will have a show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Both Patty Chang and Prema Murthy are recipients of NYFA fellowships, Chang in 1999 for Performance Art/Multidisciplinary Work and Murthy in 1997 for Computer Arts. Patty Chang will perform on September 18th at the Jack Tilton Gallery, 49 Greene Street as part of New York City's Downtown Arts Festival. Prema Murthy's Bindigirl is online at http://bbs.thing.net/

Jennifer Hickman is a writer and works for ArtsWire (NYFA's online communication network for the arts community). She lives in virtual New York City.