[Note: This is a trifold pamphlet in which the reading order by page is: 1, 2, 5, 3, 4, 6. The transcription below is presented in the reading order.]

[p. 1 / cover]

BOOK ARTISTS will inevitably be divided about works like AGRIPPA: to some, they exemplify new modes of expression for the book arts; to others, such works epitomize the use of technologies that undermine the traditional book format, and the book experience itself.

Author William Gibson and artist Dennis Ashbaugh, along with publisher Kevin Begos, Jr., have created an artist’s book that defies conventional notions of how a book is supposed to function, since it’s designed to be read only once — and then self-destruct! The physical object is a metallic-looking box which encases a bound volume with a distressed cover. Within its pages, Ashbaugh’s original copperplate engravings of DNA accompany an autobiographical story by Gibson about his dead father. Gibson’s text, however, is located on a floppy disk found in a special niche made into the book. The disk not only contains the narrative of the book, but is also encrypted with a computer virus that destroys the text as it scrolls across your computer screen. The reader is therefore confronted with an irreversible decision: to know the story of AGRIPPA which links it to the artwork, or to save it, for the text cannot be stopped, copied or printed once it is set in motion. As well, some of Ashbaugh’s images disappear as you touch the pages of the book. Obviously, this is no ordinary book.

A book has commonly been viewed as a sort of vessel for information that can be passed from person to person, even generation to generation, but AGRIPPA brings forth questions about the permanence of such information, the best format in which it can be contained, and the “ownership” of knowledge itself. All of these issues have become more evident since the advent of computer technology which has changed the ways we live and work, percieve [sic] and think. AGRIPPA expresses our ambivalence towards technology, for although it utilizes the traditional format of the book, it also embraces the technological advancements that threaten to make that format obsolete, yet also seems to undermine those offerings in the process.

The intrusion of computer technology has made modern-day Luddites of some practitioners of the book arts. These artists have long recognized a special beauty in the tactile experience associated with books, and many believe that there is crucial information derived from the selection of binding, paper, font and ink that compliments the visual and intellectual qualities of a book. A floppy disk does not

easily mesh with these media. To purists, using a monitor to reveal the narrative element of a work is contrary to this aesthetic, and requires a computer literacy that makes a book less accessible. But in much the same way, didn’t Guttenberg’s Bible remake the book and utilize a radical technology that led to greater literacy?

Ultimately, AGRIPPA is simply the story of human mortality, of a man’ s life told from afar: via the memories and recollections of his own genetic material, his son. If a primary objective of the book arts is to bind content to form, to present ideas in a format that augments their manifestation beyond the text and image, then perhaps AGRIPPA has done well to reveal the fleeting existence of a life that is once here and then gone forever.

Brian Hannon
Director, Center for Book Arts

“Farewell conventional books – and conventional collecting, and reading, and remembering. Hello electronic communication.”

–The Print Collector’s Newsletter

“Social and literary critics have been musing for years over this question: Is the book disappearing? In the case of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead, the answer. literally, is yes.”

–Esther B. Fein, New York Times

“I would rather surf the new waves of technology than drown in them.”

–Dennis Ashbaugh

“I’m more or less assuming the more aggressive elements among my readership will somehow manage to obtain this text, so in a way the whole project is a way of encouraging unknown collaboration. But I can tell you it is going to be very hard for just anyone to get into one of these things The level of encryption [of the virus] being used is very, very elegant. Just sitting down and trying to hack in won’t be a milk run.”

–William Gibson

“Those of us lucky enough to read this story and absorb the genetic information encoded in Ashbaugh’s art will have virtually the same experience as Gibson’s father that Gibson had. It will be encoded. and then etched, by memory.”

–Guy Martin, Esquire

Award-winning science fiction author William Gibson first coined the term “cyberspace” in his trilogy: Neuromancer , Count Zero , and Mona Lisa Overdrive . His latest book, The Difference Engine (co-written with Bruce Sterling) was released in paperback in January, 1992.

Dennis Ashbaugh has been a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1, and The Seattle Art Museum, among others. Ashbaugh is known for his large computer virus and DNA portrait paintings which have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Hirschorn Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Los Angeles County Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He currently shows with the Marisa del Re Gallery in New York.

Publisher Kevin Begos, Jr. has been producing limited edition books for over ten years, first for other publishers, and now with his own new company. His other current projects include books and prints with photographers Frederick Sommer, Richard Benson, and Joel-Peter Witkin, as well as books with artists and writers such as Michael Hafftka, Nick Lyons, and Chinua Achebe. <