Agrippa Press Release/Prospectus (1992)
(Item #D1) (full transcription)

printed on 17 x 22 (approximately) paper, folded in half.

[page one, cover]

DENNIS ASHBAUGH

AGRIPPA

(A Book of the Dead)

[page two, inside publication information]

KEVIN BEGOS JR.
Publisher
1411 York Ave., #4D, New York, NY 10021
Phone/Fax: 212 650-9324

[page three, description of text]

Kevin Begos Jr., publisher or museum-quality, limited edition books, has brought together artist Dennis Ashbaugh (known for his large paintings of computer viruses and his DNA “portraits”) and writer William Gibson (who coined the term cyberspace, then explored the concept in his award-winning books Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) to produce a collaborative Artist’s Book.

In an age of artificial intelligence, recombinant genetics, and radical, technologically-driven cultural change, this “Book” will be as much a challenge as a possession, as much an enigma as a “story”.

The Text, encrypted on a computer disc along with a Virus Program written especially for the project, will mutate and destroy itself in the course of a single “reading”. The Collector/Reader may either choose to access the Text, thus setting in motion a process in which the Text becomes merely a Memory, or preserve the Text unread, in its “pure” state—an artifact existing exclusively in cyberspace.

Ashbaugh’s etchings, which allude to the potent allure and taboo of Genetic Manipulation, are both counterpoint and companion-piece to the Text. Printed on beautiful rag paper, their texture, odor, form, weight, and color are qualities unavailable to the Text in cyberspace. (The etching themselves will undergo certain irreparable changes following their initial viewing.)

This Artist’s Book (which is not exactly a “book” at all) is cased in a wrought metal box, the Mechanism, which in itself becomes a crucial, integral element of the Text.
This book-as-object raises unique questions about Art, Time, Memory, Possession—and the Politics of Information Control. It will be the first Digital Myth.

[page four, back cover, blank]

[written on “Strathmore writing” paper, “25% cotton fiber USA”]

posted by eswanstrom on 08.02.05 @ 2:07 pm | Comments Off on Agrippa Press Release/Prospectus (1992)
(Item #D1) (full transcription)