Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) was published in 1992. It was a book designed to decay from its very first use. It was an unusual conceit and played into our fears about malfunctioning technology ahead of the dawning millennium.
The source of the image shown above is the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This is the museum's copy of the book, first shown in an exhibition entitled The Book and Beyond in 1995.
Made on demand for a cost of $500-1500 The book was created by publisher Kevin Begos Jr, artist Dennis Ashbaugh, and writer William Gibson. Is it a book at all?
The writing is a 302-line poem that Gibson wrote after looking at an old family photo album filled with images of people who were dead. The poem is stored on an Apple floppy disc within the "book." The disk would lock after play, meaning the user could experience the work only once. Dennis Ashbaugh’s artwork was similarly motivated. His images would distort if touched and naturally disintegrate as any paper book would - but at a much more rapid rate.
We don't like things that disintegrate. We like to preserve things.
There is a clear allusion to The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Agrippa’s dominant theme in Gibson’s poem is centered on the loss of his father. The name Agrippa referred to the photo album in his family home. The album was produced by Kodak, and the particular volume was called Agrippa. Inside the album, there were visual reminders of all those who’d gone before. So, it is a book of the dead. They provided memories, of sorts, for Gibson, and his autobiographical poem centers on those images.
Of course, memories fade, erode, crumble, and disintegrate almost immediately after the event occurs. How often do you forget a dream - even a vivid one - minutes after you wake up?
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