MARC POWELL who has been writing software for almost twenty years, is nearing his thirtieth birthday and morphing from being a programmer and hacker toward the identity of a 'Hacker-Chef.' Lately he has been concentrating on developing new flavor combinations, using state-of-the-art chemistry technology. Marc Powell travels regularly, but resides primarily in the Bay Area. Interview by V.Vale.

VALE: Why do you call yourself a Hacker- Chef?

MARC POWELL: The point is that cooking and hacking are the same--both utilize the same nerve pathways in the brain. You can write a piece of software for a girl, but sheıs not really going to be that interested in it! But if you cook food for her, youıre releasing chemicals in the brain: 'Yeah! Yum! Good! Uhmmm!' Whereas no one really cares if youıre just making a website, or writing some software. In my life I write software and hack for six months; then I spend six months trying to 'hack with food.' Actually, I consider myself a Hacker-Anarchist-Chef.

V: How do you define hacking?

MP: Hacking: finding out as much as you can about a system, using your brain. Your brain is made to find patterns in things. So hacking is learning, geeking out, finding out as much as you can about a computer, or a cellphone, or a camera, or society, or language, and then using that knowledge in ways that no oneıs ever thought of before, to either create new things or unravel existing constructs and metaphors. And thatıs all hacking is.

The first monkey that broke a branch off a tree and beat another monkey to death was hacking that tree. People hack language all the time. George Bush hacked politics. Now, one of the biggest challenges in the hacker world is making people see that hackers arenıt 'The Other,' and that hacking is a quality innate in all people. It was in tinkerers and inventors a hundred years ago--people who liked to tinker on cars and make them go faster; modify ham radio sets to receive police broadcasts, and things like that. Anytime someone figures out how to do something unexpected on a cellphone, theyıre hacking: 'Oh, does this work? Look, I can do this; they didnıt want me to do that.'

Again, the challenge now is combating the idea that hackers are The Other, because hacking is a common aspect of existence.

V: But hacking does seem to be outlaw, forbidden, rebellious, at least in the major media--

MP: Well, hacking is REBELLING, too, and hereıs where the 'Anarchist' comes in. Have you ever read God and the State by Bakunin? In the first chapter he describes the Garden of Eden and asks the question, 'What is it to be a man, versus What is it to be an animal?'

Other excerpts from Pranks! 2:

• Jihad Jerry
• Al Jourgensen & Jello Biafra
• The Yes Men
• Suicide Club
• Reverend Al
• Julia Solis
• Billboard Liberation Front
• Frank Discussion
• Paul Krassner
• Margaret Cho
• John Waters
• Ron English
• Joey Skaggs
• Survival Research Laboratories
• monochrom
• Lydia Lunch
• Cacophony Society (S.F.)

Table of Contents

Body Modifications and Sexuality / Music & Films / Subversives/Alternative Acts / Writers/Fiction