The St. Paul Pioneer Press
January 1998

Rachael Olson sits in the living room of her cluttered Minneapolis apartment, surrounded by found art objects, CDs and records. A bevy of female mannequins stand guard in one corner. Knick-knacks threaten to take over the place. The sweet aroma of incense is in the air, a cluster of religious-icon candles casts off a warm glow, and Morrissey's gloomy voice drones from the stereo speakers. In the middle of the room sits a tripod and a video camera, which is attached to two computer terminals. Both screens beam the same image: Me, sitting next to Olson on her couch. We are alone in the apartment. Alone, except for the estimated 50,000 worldwide visitors watching us via the Internet. Rachael Olson shares her most intimate moments with 50,000 Internet fans, 24 hours a day. Is it comedy? Porn? Or living art? ``They're all sitting there right now going, `Ooh. She's got a guy over. I wonder if they're going to have sex?''' cracks Olson.

Of course, to the thousands of cybersurfers who watch her every day, she isn't Olson -- the ever-provocative musician/artist who spent 11 years as leader of local noise-pop rockers The Blue Up? Nope, to most of the world, she's Ana Voog, Olson's Internet alias, who has become a bonafide cult phenomenon since August, when Olson began broadcasting her life, 24 hours a day. At the moment, her camera site is attracting an astounding 700,000 hits a day. And that might only be the beginning. Last week, her single ``Please God'' was released by the MCA subsidiary Radioactive Records. Sunday, she'll do a ``primal scream therapy'' performance at the 7th St. Entry. Next month, she starts a weekly Internet radio show, and in April, her album ``anavoog.com'' hits stores. Of course, as Olson suggests, Ana Voog's popularity can be attributed to voyeurs who hope to see her get naked -- which she does. Often. But others are dialing up to see her eat, sleep, watch TV, and sit at her computer. ``People really like to watch me sleep. I get a lot of e-mail about that: `You look so peaceful and angelic. I love to watch you sleep.' So many people read into what I do, and they get it totally wrong,'' says Olson, who got the Anacam idea last summer after seeing ``Jennicam,'' the college co-ed who put a camera in her dorm room. ``I'll just be sitting watching TV, and people will e-mail me, `You look so sad. You look so serious. You look so bored.' And I'm like, `I'm just watching TV.' Boy, do people project. Intensely.'' That's putting it mildly.

When she asked her fans to e-mail me with their reasons for watching Ana, over 100 replied, from all over the world. Some talked about her being ``hot.'' Others talked about being lonely. Others called her a ``Netstar'' and talked about ``the subliminal messages'' she sends out, of her ``cool apartment and life,'' and about the feeling of community that exists among the people who just... watch her. ``Ana is a beautiful piece of art that evolves with every passing moment,'' wrote one guy.``I hold some of her secrets and feel some of her pain,'' wrote another. ``I may be the strangest Anacam-watcher you'll hear from,'' wrote a woman from Fort Lauderdale. ``I'm a straight married woman. I work as a wedding photographer at night, and I watch Ana on an average of six days a week, two hours a day. The curiosity got to me immediately.'' ``You could compare it to having a really beautiful fish that I could watch for hours,'' wrote one guy. ``It's so calm, and peaceful. And I don't have to clean the tank.'' One woman wrote, ``Ana's medium underscores the importance of process in art, something that other media cannot capture. She epitomizes the dilemma of celebrity in this country at the moment: You are nothing unless you are seen.'

' In addition to the avalanche of e-mail (little of which she answers; ``If I did, it'd be a full-time job.''), fans have sent her electronically-manipulated images of her, all of which are archived on the site. Isn't that process, and constant interpretation, what art is all about? ``Yeah,'' says Olson. ``But it's weird when it's your life.'' Like it or not, Anacam is Olson's life now. She has no job. She's living off of her small savings, and money she got from selling off musical equipment. Her friend, local musician/engineer/producer Tommy Roberts, has foot the bill for Anacam, which costs $2,000 a month to operate. ``We're trying to figure out a way to make some money,'' says Olson. ``Tom's kind of freaking out.''

Predictably, the most popular Anacam moment to date was the night she had sex. ``I did it twice,'' she says. ``It was my ex-boyfriend. He just came over for a fling. We ordered pizza, and then we decided to do it. And I was like, `Do you want me to turn the camera away?' And he said, `I don't care.' ``We were naive, because you don't really realize you're on the Net. Like right now, sitting here, you can't possibly comprehend that thousands of people are watching us, worldwide. Argentina. Japan. Australia. Brazil. So you just sort of think, `That's not real. It's stupid.' ``So we just did it -- actually, I did have a couple shots of Jaegermeister before, just in case. ``That was the weirdest night of all time. The next day, I found out everyone at MCA was watching me. They all called each other. The president of MCA was watching. The president of Radioactive was watching. All the head lawyers were watching. Everybody was watching. I found out that the set of Warren Beatty's new movie was watching. It was just crazy. ``They had a meeting about it the next day, and (Radioactive president) Gary (Kurfirst) was faxing a portfolio of me having sex to all these people. And they all got really excited and really freaked out. ``And I just thought, `This is really sick and really intriguing. Both.'''

For the entirety of the 90-minute interview, the question that has hung in the incense is, why? Why, when most of us protect our privacy so fiercely, would a tiny, 31-year-old single woman invite the world into her home? ``I don't know why I'm doing this, I just don't,'' she says, throwing her hands over her face. ``Wait. I know why: I hate that whole `Women in Rock' thing. They're always trying to categorize me, and they always have. Now they say I'm just like Tori Amos. Or Gwen Stefani. And I've had so much trouble with record companies, trying to fit me into a genre so they can market me. ``Radioactive gave me this video cam to make videos. Gary said, `Make some videos and we'll see what you've got.' And we got in a real pissy argument about it. He just wanted me to do some `cam homework' or something. And right around this time, I discovered Jenni, and Tommy said he'd put up the money. ``So we made the site, and I called Gary up and said, `By the way, I'm on the Net 24 hours a day. There's your cam homework.' And it was just my way of saying, `(Screw) you' to the industry. You want pictures of me? You want to categorize me, and figure out who I am? Then watch me sleep, watch me eat, watch me take a shower, watch me be depressed, watch me do everything. Tune in. ``It kind of backfired, in a way, because I thought I would be less mysterious of a person, and I would become more real. And in a way, I have, but in another way, I've become more mysterious. What I've discovered is that the more you give people, the more they project. I can't combat it.''

In the six months since becoming a Netstar, Ana Voog has broadcast an image of her genitals on the wall of the Walker Art Center during an electronic installation, had live sex on the Internet, and tried, unsuccessfully, to auction off one of her used tampons. Is it art? Is it comedy? Is it pornography? At this point, 50,000 Ana fans can't be wrong. They'll continue to log on to find the answers to such burning questions as: Will she pick her nose? Will she have sex? ``I can't get over it, I really can't,'' she concludes. ``We could talk about this for hours, and there'd still be more to say. But I think I'm more entertained than anybody else who watches me. Everyday I wake up and go, `What will happen today?'''

-- Jim Walsh, pop music critic