3½, 800 Kb Diskette, Spray-Painted Black, Possibly Used as Early Prop for Agrippa

Front (in wrapper)
Sliding open the shutter of the black spray-painted 800 Kb diskette reveals white plastic beneath

Front
Front

The poem continues
Back

 

 
 
Item #D53. 3½”, 800 Kb diskette with spray-painted shutter also belonging to collector Allan Chasanoff with unrecoverable or blank data

This 3½”, 800 Kb diskette was sent to The Agrippa Files by Allan Chasanoff together with the original 1992, mint-condition, 3½”, 1.4 Mb diskette included in his copy of Agrippa. It is possibly also vintage 1992. Sliding the shutter of the diskette open reveals white plastic underneath the black spray paint. Efforts in the Digital Forensics Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park, to recover code from this diskette were unsuccessful, possibly because the disk was originally blank. As discussed in Matthew G. Kirshenbaum’s “No Round Trip: Two New Primary Sources for Agrippa,” the painted diskette “may have simply been a prop, perhaps intended for display with one of the project’s prototypes.” (See other early prototypes of Agrippa.)

Bootleg Video of “Transmission” Event at the Americas Society, With Live Run of the Diskette Containing William Gibson’s “Agrippa” (9 December 1992)

Rapid access: YouTube
Higher-quality: .mp4

60 min.
Karen Benfield interviewing Kevin Begos, Jr.

Karen Benfield interviewing Kevin Begos, Jr.
Laptop used for presentation

Laptop used for presentation
Laptop and projection screen

Laptop and projection screen
Laptop screen open to folder with Agrippa file

Laptop screen open to folder with Agrippa file
Agrippa title page projected from running the diskette

Agrippa title page projected from running the diskette
Agrippa

Agrippa label projected from running the diskette
Go to bootleg video

Based on DVD-format VOB files created from the video tape. 60 min.

Rapid access: YouTube
Higher-quality: .mp4

 
 
 
Item #D48. Bootleg Video of Live Run of the Diskette Containing William Gibson’s “Agrippa” at the Americas Society, New York City (9 Dec. 1992).

This video, approximately one hour long, was made surreptiously by “Templar,” the pseudonym of one member of a graduate-student team known as “Templar, Rosehammer, and Pseudophred” from New York University’s Interactive Television Program. The team had been recruited to shoot the screen of a laptop computer used by Kevin Begos, Jr. (the publisher of Agrippa) for the public unveiling of Agrippa at the Americas Society, New York City, on December 9, 1992 (during the so-called “Transmission” event). Their sanctioned mission was to project on a large screen the laptop’s image of a complete, live “run” of William Gibson’s poem (running from Agrippa’s diskette). Unbeknownst to the event’s organizers, however, Templar had slotted a blank video cassette into the camera used for the live feed. The resulting recording is presented here from a copy of the original videotape (the original has not been found) recovered in 2007 by “Rosehammer” from a ¾ video tape cartridge (in NTSC format) labeled “AGRIPPA—[Templar’s] VIEW.” Highlights of the recording include:

  • Interview of Kevin Begos, Jr. by Karen Benfield, producer for the Wall Street Journal Television Report (approx. 20 minutes).
  • The “run” of Gibson’s poem scrolling up the screen of Begos’s laptop, accompanied by a synchronized audio recording of comedian Penn Jilette reading the text (approx. 20 minutes).
  • Question and answer period with Begos, cut off unexpectedly when someone approached Templar and caused him to stop recording to prevent discovery.

For detailed discussion of this video and related events, see on this site Matthew G. Kirschenbaum’s “No Round Trip: Two New Primary Sources for Agrippa (as well as the earlier excerpt from his book, Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (MIT Press, 2008). Of related interest: Re:Agrippa, an experimental video composition made by Rosehammer and Templar in 1993 that samples and remixes selected footage from the 1992 bootleg video, and adds experimental-video-style montage, sound, and titling effects.

Note: The Agrippa Files had originally wanted to present this video on YouTube because it is the most iconic of the cyberspace, viral video channels now fulfilling the prophecy of Templar, Rosehammer, and Pseudophred’s “hack” of the Americas Society event on December 9, 1992, which led the next day to the viral, plain-text release of Gibson’s poem on the internet. But due to the length of the video, which exceeds YouTube’s constraints, Google Video was chosen.

Video Cartridge with ¾” Tape Copy of Bootleg Video of “Transmission” Event at the Americas Society, New York City (December 9, 1992)

Front
Front label
Video cartridge open
Spine
Back
 
 
Item #D49. Video cartridge containing ¾”-tape copy of the bootleg video of “Transmission” event at the Americas Society, New York Society. (Basis of Item #D48 on this site; original video recorded 9 Dec. 1992; date of this video cartridge and its copy of the original tape unknown)
 
Note that the front cover of the box for the cartridge bears a label for the 1993 Re:Agrippa remix of the tape by the pseudonymous “Rosehammer,” while the label on the cartridge itself refers to his partner “Templar’s” camera view at the original, 1992 Americas Society event.

Scarpa, Marc. Digital Scrapbook Entry on Agrippa

MarcScarpa.com. Retrieved 26 August 2006. http://www.marcscarpa.org/timeline (navigate to “Agrippa” in the Flash interface)

In 1992, Marc Scarpa was hired by Kevin Begos, Jr., to help produce “the Transmission” of Agrippa. This entry in Scarpa’s digital scrapbook provides some details about the event. (The Agrippa transmission was Scarpa’s first netcast production. He later became a leader in the field of live networked productions [bio].) (more…)

Email Address

Send private comments or suggestions about the site to:
email address

Contact Information

Alan Liu, Professor, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3170

Copyright Information

Photos of the book, correspondence and press releases by Kevin Begos, Jr., are used on The Agrippa Files by permission of the publisher, and may not be reproduced without express written permission.

Design and special contents of Agrippa (a book of the dead) is © by Kevin Begos, Jr. Etchings and box design © Dennis Ashbaugh. Poem © William Gibson.

Text, images, and design created specifically for the Agrippa Files site, are © the UC Santa Barbara Transcriptions Project and University of California, Santa Barbara.

Where indicated, copyright for texts, images, and materials by other authors or organizations used by permission on The Agrippa Files site is retained by those entities.

Archival Documents

Also includes electronic, digital, and other media artifacts used in the creation, publication, circulation, or documentation of Agrippa

Item #D1 Agrippa Press Release/Prospectus (1992)
Item #D2 Printer’s Copy of Genetic Code for Agrippa Body Text (1992)
Item #D3 Instructions for the Diskette in Agrippa (1992)
Item #D4 Mathematical Foundation for Agrippa’s Encryption Code (1938)
Item #D5 Code for Scrolling Gibson’s Poem in Agrippa (9 August 1992)
Item #D6 Letter from the Programmer (28 March 1992)
Item #D7 Notes on Agrippa’s Code (25 March 1992)
Item #D8 Conversations from the Echo Network (April 1992)
Item #D9 Letter from Kevin Begos to William Gibson (1992)
Item #D10 Machine Code (7 July 1992)
Item #D11 Press Release for “The Transmission” (1 December 1992)
Item #D12 Technical Specs for “the Transmission” (15 September 1992)
Item #D13 The Kitchen’s Advertisement for “The Transmission” (1992)
Item #D14 Letter from Kevin Begos to Chris Farley at USA Today (8 April 1992)
Item #D15 Letter from Kevin Begos to Alan Liu (26 October 2002)
Item #D16 Re:Agrippa (Experimental Video of Dec. 9, 1992, ‘Transmission’ of Agrippa) (1993)
Item #D17 Center for Book Arts Invitation (1993)
Item #D18 The Kitchen’s Press Release for “The Transmission” (16 October 1992)
Item #D19 Florida State Univ. Exhibition Press Release (1994)
Item #D20 Florida State Univ. Exhibition Loan Agreement (9 February 1992)
Item #D22 Victoria & Albert Museum Book and Beyond Exhibition Catalog (1995)
Item #D22 Center for Book Arts Newsletter Article (April 1993)
Item #D23 Invitation to Attend Exhibition at Stella’s (1992)
Item #D24 Cryptography Conference Attended by Kevin Begos (1 June 1992)
Item #D25 Further Conversations from the Echo Network (November-December 1992)
Item #D26 Kodak Catalog Advertising “The Agrippa Album” (1920)
Item #D27 Letter from Kevin Begos to William Gibson (c. Oct. 1992)
Item #D28 New Yorker Notice of “The Transmission” (14 December 1992)
Item #D29 Last Letter from the Programmer (9 August 1992)
Item #D30 Publisher’s Press Release for Agrippa (23 March 1992)
Item #D31 Letter from the Programmer (28 April 1992)
Item #D32 Letter from the Programmer (7 May 1992)
Item #D33 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: Any One Acquainted with the Mechanisms of Projecting Lanterns Will See Its Advantages
Item #D34 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: Pay Your Bills By Check
Item #D35 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: Rapidly Detects and Quantifies Single and Double-Stranded DNA
Item #D36 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: Recognized as the Height of Quality
Item #D37 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: For Instantaneous Photography at Night
Item #D38 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: We Now Introduce Such an Article
Item #D39 Source image for overprints on Dennis Ashbaugh’s etchings: Tell Daddy We Miss Him
Item #D40 Letter from Kevin Begos to William Gibson (1992)
Item #D41 Letter from Kevin Begos to Nick Despotopoulis at Apple Computer (24 July 1992)
Item #D42 Contract for Never-Created CD-ROM of Agrippa (undated)
Item #D43 Center for Book Arts Exhibition Catalog (1993)
Item #D44 ‘Templar’s’ Introduction to the First Online Copy of Gibson’s ‘Agrippa’ Poem (December 10, 1992)
Item #D45 Letter from John Perry Barlow to Kevin Begos (11 June 1992)
Item #D46 Flyer for UC Santa Barbara Exhibition and Panel on Agrippa (1 Dec. 2005)
Item #D47 Original Hand-Drawn Technical Plan for “the Transmission” (1992)
Item #D48 Bootleg video of Live Run of the Diskette Containing William Gibson’s “Agrippa” at the Americas Society, New York City (9 Dec. 1992)
Item #D49 Video cartridge containing ¾”-tape copy of the bootleg video of “Transmission” event at the Americas Society, New York Society. (Basis on Item #D48 on this site) (Original video recorded 9 Dec. 1992; date of this video cartridge and its copy of the original tape unknown)
Item #D50 Disk image (bit-level copy) of Agrippa diskette created from collector Allan Chasanoff’s original 1992 diskette (downloadable disk-image file: fd0_agrippa.dmg) (Oct. 2008)
Item #D51 Video capture of a “run” of William Gibson’s “Agrippa” poem made from playing a disk-image (bit-level) copy of original 1992 Agrippa diskette (Oct. 2008)
Item #D52 Original 1992 Agrippa 3½”, 1.4 Mb diskette belonging to collector Allan Chasanoff; used to make the disk-image copy and emulated run of the William Gibson poem featured on this site (Items #D50, #D51) (23 Sept. to 7 Oct. 1992)
Item #D53 3½”, 800 Kb diskette, spray-painted black, also belonging to collector Allan Chasanoff with unrecoverable or blank data; relation to the functional 1992 Agrippa 3½”, 1.4 Mb diskette (Item #D52) belonging to Chasanoff unknown. (It was possibly a prop used in the creation or publicity for Agrippa (possibly 1992)
Item #D54 Original Text of Gibson’s “Agrippa” Poem Extracted From Disk

Original Hand-Drawn Technical Plan for “the Transmission” (1992)

Agrippa code
Item #D47. Original hand-drawn technical plan and specs for the December 9, 1992, “transmission” of Agrippa.

Facsimile Image

This drawing by Marc Scarpa was the basis for his later, typed technical specs for “the Transmission” (see Item #D12)