1 00:00:05,210 --> 00:00:11,990 So welcome, everyone, to this second day of symposium on Agrippa. 2 00:00:12,650 --> 00:00:14,870 And next, 3 00:00:14,870 --> 00:00:31,160 we're going to have quite an extraordinary panel of key players in the celebrated transmission of Agrippa that occurred on the 9th of December 1992. 4 00:00:31,730 --> 00:00:44,180 And a number of these individuals have never publicly stated who they are and will be doing so for the first time today. 5 00:00:44,870 --> 00:00:51,470 So each will go in turn and talk about their experience of the transmission event. 6 00:00:52,160 --> 00:01:05,360 But in advance of that, we are going to play a video of one of the launches at the Americas Society in New York, 7 00:01:05,750 --> 00:01:14,479 and then we'll follow that by showing just a few documents from the archive of Agrippa at the Bodleian. 8 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:20,180 And then we'll let our panellists tell us some more about the event. 9 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:24,500 So I think without further ado, let's begin. 10 00:01:37,730 --> 00:01:47,120 [START OF THE EXCERPT OF THE VIDEO OF THE TRANSMISSION] Thank you all for coming here. I'm Laura Blond, Director of the program development here, and I'm delighted to recognise some of the faces 11 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:54,410 From Part One of our Cyber mini series, which featured William Gibson and Jack Womack. 12 00:01:55,250 --> 00:02:09,260 And Jack is back with us again tonight. Tonight is the second and final episode starring Agrippa, a book of the dead, Gibson's withering computer disk story of the withering of his father. 13 00:02:10,940 --> 00:02:15,760 In the best Brechtian traditions, we have exposed the seams of our set. 14 00:02:16,580 --> 00:02:27,140 A mass PowerBook 180 interfaced with a high 8 video, a Sony VPH 1041 Q and a BNC connector. 15 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:30,200 I have trouble with can openers, 16 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:41,060 but one of the boons of this whole project is that I know my way around words like Radius PowerView and LCD panel, as if I owned them. 17 00:02:42,380 --> 00:02:46,910 When the Kansas City Agrippa site called last week to share panics. 18 00:02:47,630 --> 00:02:54,980 I coolly said that I was contemplating using our Sony projector with a CJD monitor hooked up 19 00:02:54,980 --> 00:03:05,880 ... specifically a SY9M part 26-73-90-4, which, for those of you who don't know, is now the connector for BNC. 20 00:03:07,790 --> 00:03:11,930 Now I'll turn the evening over to people who really know what they're talking about. 21 00:03:13,070 --> 00:03:19,790 The flow of the evening is that Kevin Begos, publisher of Agrippa and other limited edition art books, 22 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:27,200 will first discuss the project with Karen Benfield, associate producer with the Wall Street Journal Television Report. 23 00:03:28,370 --> 00:03:34,430 And then in the spirit of disembodied texts, you'll hear the disembodied voice of Penn Jillette, 24 00:03:35,100 --> 00:03:42,350 From Penn and Teller, the magic performance duo, in a pre-recorded reading Agrippa as it scrolls on screen. 25 00:03:43,730 --> 00:03:45,800 Kevin will be back for questions afterwards. 26 00:03:46,340 --> 00:03:55,670 And finally, we'll drink to postmodernity amidst Agrippa designer Dennis Ashbaugh's DNA portrait paintings upstairs. 27 00:03:56,690 --> 00:04:00,460 Please join me in welcoming Kevin Begos and Karen Benfield. 28 [[START OF THE EXCERPT OF GIBSON'S POEM AS PART OF THE VIDEO OF THE TRANSMISSION]] 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:28,510 I hesitated / before untying the bow / that bound this book together. / A black book: / ALBUMS / 29 00:04:28,990 --> 00:04:40,090 CA. AGRIPPA / Order Extra Leaves / By Letter and Name / A Kodak album of time-burned / black construction paper / 30 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:49,000 The string he tied / Has been unravelled by years / and the dry weather of trunks / Like a lady's shoestring from the First World War / 31 00:04:49,090 --> 00:04:56,200 Its metal ferrules eaten by oxygen / Until they resemble cigarette-ash / Inside the cover 32 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,460 he inscribed something in soft graphite / Now lost / Then his name / 33 00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:12,069 William F. Gibson Jr. / and something, comma, / 1924 / Then he glued his Kodak prints down / And wrote under them / in chalk-like white pencil: / 34 00:05:12,070 --> 00:05:16,270 "Papa's saw mill, Aug. 1919." / 35 [END OF THE EXCERPT OF THE VIDEO OF THE TRANSMISSION] 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:27,040 Yes, ok, so thank you. If you want to. 36 00:05:27,370 --> 00:05:30,370 Read more…. 37 00:05:30,730 --> 00:05:38,720 Can we show again the link to the transmission event, to all the online audience? 38 00:05:39,940 --> 00:05:43,330 So I think that’s it, so thank you very much Dan and Walid. 39 00:05:43,390 --> 00:05:49,090 And so now following that, 40 00:05:49,090 --> 00:05:55,600 I am just going to show couple materials that we have here in the archive at the Bodleian that was 41 00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:02,420 donated by Kevin Begos Jr in 2011 and these archival materials they relate to two things. 42 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:11,590 So, one actually is related to another launch event that actually happened for Agrippa that was also in New York but at The Kitchen this time. 43 00:06:12,100 --> 00:06:19,490 So I'll first show this material. And so, here, thank you, Lauren Amazeen 44 00:06:19,750 --> 00:06:28,930 and John Maxwell Hobbs, who are among our speakers, as they will be able to tell us actually more about what is this document. 45 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:33,780 We’re just going to show a few materials that we have here at the Bodleian. 46 00:06:34,110 --> 00:06:40,409 So this is a letter of agreement that was actually signed by one of our panellists here today, Lauren 47 00:06:40,410 --> 00:06:48,480 Amazeen, Director of The Kitchen. And it is an argument about what exactly will be the launch event of Agrippa at The Kitchen. 48 00:06:48,750 --> 00:06:54,000 And, you didn't have Penn Jillette, you had Robert Ashley as an artist to read the poem. 49 00:06:54,270 --> 00:07:00,000 And I believe that John will also tell us more about all of that and how it worked out. 50 00:07:00,410 --> 00:07:03,750 And why you went with actually somebody reading the poem live. 51 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:15,779 So there is that first document which I think everybody now can see and the second document which 52 00:07:15,780 --> 00:07:27,030 I'm going to show is actually this little draft of what was supposed to be the transmission and, 53 00:07:29,380 --> 00:07:41,720 Yes, today here with us, actually, as a panellist Marc Scarpa, was actually at the time the producer in charge of the netcast broadcasting 54 00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:45,070 And that will explain us more 55 00:07:45,250 --> 00:07:50,379 What is this document presenting and he just told us actually this document 56 00:07:50,380 --> 00:07:55,180 is in the hand of Dennis Ashbaugh and he has another document that compares to that 57 00:07:55,450 --> 00:08:02,910 And so I'll hand it over to you, Mark, to introduce yourself and tell us what it is this document and everything you know, 58 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:06,780 your engagement with Agrippa. Thank you. 59 00:08:07,900 --> 00:08:12,760 Okay. Thank you very much. Well, just a little background. 60 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:16,480 I was. Thank you, everyone. I'm honoured to be here. 61 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:24,760 And it's good to see some old friends and new ones. A lot of us collaborated on this project and didn't meet and or know each other at the time. 62 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:29,860 And that was sort of the heart of the whole vision of Agrippa the transmission. 63 00:08:29,860 --> 00:08:41,080 The idea that everyone could come together with this very interesting story that was part of Agrippa A Book of the Dead and that it would, 64 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:45,070 in essence, metastasise or become a virus, 65 00:08:45,070 --> 00:08:53,260 if you will, where the story would be placed on one bulletin board service and one way, 66 00:08:53,260 --> 00:08:56,770 and then it would be shared with another one, and so on and so on. 67 00:08:57,820 --> 00:09:04,660 However, it might change and grow and evolve to the point where the story would actually change and grow and evolve. 68 00:09:05,110 --> 00:09:07,780 In speaking with Bill at that time, 69 00:09:08,230 --> 00:09:18,160 his hope and desire was that it would grow into thousands or hundreds of thousands of different versions of the story. 70 00:09:18,700 --> 00:09:25,209 And ironically, now, 30 years later, and we're all getting together, it seems as though his vision was realised. 71 00:09:25,210 --> 00:09:33,970 So we should really owe a debt of gratitude to both Bill and Kevin and Dennis for leading the way in this project, 72 00:09:33,970 --> 00:09:38,230 which is just in essence a very quirky art project at the time, 73 00:09:38,650 --> 00:09:48,219 and that was able to try a lot of new ideas and fortunately there were a lot of other quirky folks like myself and everyone 74 00:09:48,220 --> 00:09:56,070 else in this session that thought it was a good idea and let's all gravitate towards it and try to make it happen. 75 00:09:56,890 --> 00:10:04,450 The transmission side of this I had stumbled upon having met Bill through my work at CBS News. 76 00:10:04,810 --> 00:10:14,020 We had done a story about him that was unrelated to Agrippa, and also as a result, I had gotten connected to Dennis Ashbaugh. 77 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:18,040 Dennis then put me in touch with Kevin Begos and, 78 00:10:19,700 --> 00:10:23,180 You know, the book was already well under way. 79 00:10:23,570 --> 00:10:26,780 And the idea of the transmission sort of manifested. 80 00:10:26,780 --> 00:10:30,590 And you did see a version of the drawing there. 81 00:10:32,180 --> 00:10:37,610 But if I can share my screen, this was my original drawing here. 82 00:10:39,860 --> 00:10:43,670 And I think that drawing, as I mentioned, was done by Kevin. 83 00:10:44,090 --> 00:10:47,840 Not Kevin sorry, it was done by Dennis after I had done this one. 84 00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:58,940 So this was sort of, you know, at that time we I was a phone freaker and had been online since 1980, 1981. 85 00:10:59,750 --> 00:11:08,239 So very familiar with bulletin boards and so on. But the idea of actually having an auto dial infrastructure, 86 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:18,770 the thought was that the book itself or the words from the story would go to one bulletin board, 87 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:23,209 be published one way, then go to the next one, the next one, the next one. 88 00:11:23,210 --> 00:11:31,820 So in essence, instead of what we now understand as webcasting, where it's one source to many, from a server and receiver standpoint, 89 00:11:32,090 --> 00:11:40,430 we had actually dial up each bulletin board and post each one of these versions of the story and we were trying to figure out. 90 00:11:41,420 --> 00:11:45,590 Well, how do we do that? In an automated way? How can it be done potentially? 91 00:11:45,710 --> 00:11:51,230 We were even thinking of audio and video back then as a as a way to actually 92 00:11:51,230 --> 00:11:56,600 maybe shoot some video and have it sent published and available for download, 93 00:11:57,530 --> 00:12:02,270 which was obviously way ahead of its time since that technology really didn't exist at that time. 94 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:11,660 And we also were looking at other ways to get it to individual destinations in a faster capacity. 95 00:12:12,050 --> 00:12:27,050 And there was, you know, a networking situation or technology that was called Switch 56, which is in essence 56.6 modem technology or bandwidth. 96 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:37,430 At that time, it was like 8 bit and 14.4, 28 bit really wasn't even a reality on a daily level per say, was there. 97 00:12:37,430 --> 00:12:43,639 But, you know, you started to look at these new technologies in terms of bandwidth architecture, 98 00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:47,840 which was switch 56, and that was actually a thing at the time. 99 00:12:48,020 --> 00:12:52,190 And we thought, wow, now with Switch 56, we actually can send audio and video. 100 00:12:52,610 --> 00:13:00,200 So needless to say, a lot of this, these drawings here, this original drawing was just us whiteboarding. 101 00:13:01,310 --> 00:13:08,510 Then that turned into looking at sort of a more in depth. 102 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:16,280 Okay, what is this really going to look like in terms of instead of doing it live on all these different destinations at the same time? 103 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:23,480 Because that was the idea was let's get a bunch of modems together that would then dial all of these 104 00:13:23,720 --> 00:13:30,260 bulletin boards at exactly the same time using Switch 56 and then post it all simultaneously. 105 00:13:31,190 --> 00:13:36,319 And in essence, we were thinking about it from a broadcast perspective and what it ended up doing, 106 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:44,540 what we ended up doing is more of a delayed transmission that also included a presentation with it. 107 00:13:44,870 --> 00:13:51,549 And so you can see the technical flow chart here where we had the disk, the CPU, the monitor, the outgoing modem, 108 00:13:51,550 --> 00:13:56,750 the telephone line at that time with 9600 baud, the incoming modem, 109 00:13:56,750 --> 00:14:04,910 the terminal programmed to run the script and then at certain sites around the world, 110 00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:10,430 the thought was that they would have all these sort of watch parties, if you will, where it would come in, 111 00:14:10,820 --> 00:14:16,220 and that would be projected onto the screen, just like ironically we're doing now very easily with Zoom. 112 00:14:16,700 --> 00:14:20,840 And then you'd have a CPU monitor there in the location. 113 00:14:21,230 --> 00:14:25,310 So as you could see, this was all very academic 114 00:14:26,980 --> 00:14:30,850 And in many ways unrealistic at the time. 115 00:14:30,850 --> 00:14:40,210 But it was something that, you know, ended up being sort of a roadmap for where we are today with broadcasts in general. 116 00:14:41,290 --> 00:14:50,410 What else is here is sort of just I think this is my outline of a weekly report that I sent to Kevin. 117 00:14:51,490 --> 00:14:54,040 We were looking for sponsorships at the time. 118 00:14:54,040 --> 00:15:04,090 We were looking at primary and secondary test locations as well as primary and secondary locations for these watch parties, if you will. 119 00:15:05,110 --> 00:15:10,990 And ultimately, our goal here was to achieve electric mothership connection, as I would like to say. 120 00:15:11,410 --> 00:15:14,530 And so we had a lot of fun with it. 121 00:15:14,530 --> 00:15:25,060 And, you know, my my career, this really sort of sparked my interest in the idea of being able to send and transmit information. 122 00:15:27,790 --> 00:15:32,889 You know, in a streaming capacity, which again, didn't exist at that time later on. 123 00:15:32,890 --> 00:15:40,570 And that was what my career turned out to be, is, you know, doing the first large online webcast in history, 124 00:15:40,570 --> 00:15:45,100 which was the Free Tibet Festival just some four years later in 1996, 125 00:15:45,100 --> 00:15:56,800 using real video technology or real audio and video technology with a slight detour prior to that using zings DreamWorks about 1995. 126 00:15:57,340 --> 00:16:03,520 So it really all started with this project and and just sort of grew from there. 127 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:15,850 And I'm not sure what else I could mention off the top of my head here is the drawing that you have, I believe and this is, again, 128 00:16:16,660 --> 00:16:24,820 Dennis and I kind of playing from what I recall with the original drawing and looking at how this could all come together and of course, 129 00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:29,200 tying into the event that eventually wound up happening at The Kitchen. 130 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,650 So we didn't end up doing watch parties all around the world. 131 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:41,380 We ended up doing one event at The Kitchen that was hosted by John and it went swimmingly well and was a great event. 132 00:16:41,710 --> 00:16:49,030 We also had a party as well that everyone attended, which was kind of fun. 133 00:16:50,230 --> 00:16:59,799 And we did get these transmissions out to a select group of locations, and a lot of the other colleagues here took the, 134 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:05,680 I guess, format or the model that we put together and went ahead and shared it with different bulletin boards. 135 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:11,979 So I think we started out with very grandiose ideas of being able to hit everyone all at once. 136 00:17:11,980 --> 00:17:21,850 And one big shot with watch parties all around the world to we had one event in New York City with all of us 137 00:17:21,850 --> 00:17:28,210 sort of taking the story individually and sending it to different bulletin boards and it slowly caught on. 138 00:17:28,510 --> 00:17:34,120 So the traction, you know, we gained momentum over years and years and years, obviously. 139 00:17:35,290 --> 00:17:38,889 But we did start out with that very, very large vision. 140 00:17:38,890 --> 00:17:43,510 And, you know, it wound up practicality wise. 141 00:17:44,650 --> 00:17:50,680 Being something that was done very organic and ultimately in a very Bill-esque way, 142 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:55,810 very underground and very cypherpunk, so very proud to be a part of this project. 143 00:17:56,230 --> 00:18:00,940 We all really didn't know what the [INAUDIBLE] we were doing, but we just went ahead and did it. 144 00:18:01,140 --> 00:18:05,530 And so there you go. That's sort of a beginning of the conversation, I guess. 145 00:18:05,740 --> 00:18:10,190 Kick it off to my colleagues. Well done. 146 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:22,730 Well done then, and well done now. So I am Lauren Amazon and excuse me, I'm getting sentimental here. 147 00:18:24,350 --> 00:18:28,400 I was Director of The Kitchen in those days. 148 00:18:28,430 --> 00:18:36,580 Excuse me. All right. 149 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:46,590 We were the Downtown. And as it turns out, the only space and we were the perfect space for this event to happen. 150 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:52,930 And so I thought what I would do is give some sort of a. 151 00:18:55,050 --> 00:18:57,480 It just gives you the environment of the time. 152 00:18:58,290 --> 00:19:07,700 And basically The Kitchen was the kind of place where people who maybe didn't fit somewhere else or anywhere else they fit with us. 153 00:19:08,310 --> 00:19:10,950 And it was just a natural connection. 154 00:19:11,580 --> 00:19:23,820 And in those days, works were described as arts that weren't interested in being branded or in being classified necessarily. 155 00:19:24,330 --> 00:19:38,280 And so the way that we framed everything was works would be described as works in progress, experimental interdisciplinary projects. 156 00:19:38,610 --> 00:19:48,540 When we brought people in, we weren't looking necessarily for a finished or a polished event or work or work in progress. 157 00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:58,680 It was more about the experience and the development of the ideas, the intellect, the creative process. 158 00:19:59,340 --> 00:20:05,040 And there was always, as the Director, 159 00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:11,430 I always made sure that there was room for the unexpected, room for the unanticipated, 160 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:20,280 and for people that might just happen to be in town and had a really good idea and they were welcome. 161 00:20:21,190 --> 00:20:27,760 So and for a lot of the artists at that point, it was not about the market at all. 162 00:20:27,790 --> 00:20:30,909 In fact, they didn't really want to be part of the market, 163 00:20:30,910 --> 00:20:41,620 although a lot of the work that started at the content ended up being nowadays mainstream, shall we say, or it's developed into that. 164 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:52,900 And the way I would describe it was it was raw and rigorous and it was about creative expression and experience. 165 00:20:53,770 --> 00:21:05,830 And what I thought I would do is just read to you the way that we wrote about that project for the little press that we were able to do. What we did, 166 00:21:06,490 --> 00:21:13,240 You saw the contract, and what the contract was about was we offered them our space, 167 00:21:13,990 --> 00:21:20,420 all our team and all our expertise, and that's what we contributed to it. 168 00:21:20,450 --> 00:21:24,190 There wasn't a lot of mix. It wasn't necessarily transactional, 169 00:21:24,910 --> 00:21:35,920 but we we all collaborated and we had great space and we had a great community and we had a great team of which John was the head of the team. 170 00:21:36,670 --> 00:21:43,270 So I thought I would just read you so you get a little taste of the way that we described it. 171 00:21:44,770 --> 00:21:54,460 Agrippa exists in various forms a computer disk, a battered old book, and a global fireside chat. 172 00:21:55,610 --> 00:22:09,110 The story is told in words, pictures, sounds, smells and the passage of time and will be broadcast to dozens of sites around the world 173 00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:16,239 at the same moment. The live presentation of Agrippa will be, by its nature, 174 00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:28,750 a mutation of the original book project presented in a form radically different from traditional ways of experiencing literature and art. 175 00:22:29,740 --> 00:22:36,490 Agrippa, The Transmission should not be confused with the published version of Agrippa. 176 00:22:37,150 --> 00:22:41,470 The book is an art object with weight, smell and texture, 177 00:22:42,010 --> 00:22:51,430 while the transmission tells another aspect of the story and hastens a new form of tribal storytelling. 178 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:58,550 And then we went on to describe a little bit about the usage of the disk, etc. 179 00:22:58,910 --> 00:23:00,920 And I'll just read you this one sentence. 180 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:10,970 However, the disk is encrypted with a specially designed program which will destroy the text after the first reading. 181 00:23:11,690 --> 00:23:21,530 The reader must make an irreversible decision, but the story cannot be stopped, copied or printed. 182 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:27,580 Once it is set in motion. Here you go. 183 00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:33,070 I am John Maxwell Hobbs. 184 00:23:33,670 --> 00:23:42,970 I also was at The Kitchen at that time, I was the Producing Director and also responsible for what we were doing in new technologies at that point. 185 00:23:44,260 --> 00:23:47,920 The Kitchen was the first arts organisation in the world to be on the Internet. 186 00:23:48,370 --> 00:23:55,210 And at that point that was prior to anything outside of academia being on the web. 187 00:23:55,390 --> 00:24:06,090 So we communicated using finger and gopher, look those up as you would finger to The Kitchen to get the schedule. 188 00:24:06,130 --> 00:24:11,650 And that was also back in the days when an institution, didn't matter how many 189 00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:18,850 staff members you had, had one e-mail address and we were The Kitchen at Panics.com 190 00:24:20,170 --> 00:24:25,660 Annexe was the first IST in New York, and it was very interesting. 191 00:24:27,500 --> 00:24:31,160 What Mark was saying had jogged my memory at that point. 192 00:24:32,630 --> 00:24:42,590 The Internet was just one of a number of different ways to communicate online and wasn't necessarily the primary one as well. 193 00:24:43,010 --> 00:24:51,260 And Mark had mentioned the bulletin board system, and that actually was very robust and had been around for quite a long time. 194 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:54,500 A little system called Fido net. 195 00:24:55,100 --> 00:25:05,360 So basically you could communicate with someone on a different bulletin board, but you had to log on, upload your material and then sign on. 196 00:25:05,900 --> 00:25:17,030 And then at some point within the next 24 to 48 hours, one bulletin board would communicate with another and hand over a whole package of information. 197 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:23,660 So that was a very slow and very asynchronous way of moving things around. 198 00:25:23,660 --> 00:25:31,430 So it made a lot of sense for this project to come to the kitchen because we'd been thinking in very similar ways. 199 00:25:31,430 --> 00:25:39,979 And Mark's the Venn diagram of Marc's career and my career have overlapped multiple times over the years, along with a lot of other people. 200 00:25:39,980 --> 00:25:44,540 But it was very interesting to see in that fashion, and I still remember. 201 00:25:46,460 --> 00:25:53,780 The Agrippa team had come to the kitchen as they were still assembling everything, including the book itself. 202 00:25:53,780 --> 00:26:04,450 So there were still things that were up in the air. And I just remember that the vision was someone and nobody was sure at that point who 203 00:26:04,450 --> 00:26:11,420 it would be would be reading it in a barn somewhere in the middle of the United States, 204 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:19,350 transmitting to cities and other locations, delivering things mid Fido.net or via Audio. 205 00:26:19,370 --> 00:26:27,949 And this was even I think when the early tests were being done with see, you see me at Cornell and things like that. 206 00:26:27,950 --> 00:26:38,120 But it was long, long, long before multimedia was really being transmitted other than through military and academic institutions. 207 00:26:39,230 --> 00:26:48,590 And I'll hand over to the next person because the rest of the things in my head probably sit there in the discussion of how it was done. 208 00:26:48,770 --> 00:26:56,590 [inaudible] 209 00:26:58,430 --> 00:27:02,300 [inaudible] 210 00:27:05,890 --> 00:27:16,960 Oh, hello. My name's Daniel Salinger. I'm a film producer based in Los Angeles, and at the time, I was a student at New York University in the film department. 211 00:27:17,470 --> 00:27:26,700 And I had read Neuromancer and was into a lot of the things I was on the bulletin boards. 212 00:27:26,710 --> 00:27:37,910 I was into this sort of thing at the time, and I was taking classes at a graduate level department at NYU at 721 Broadway. 213 00:27:37,910 --> 00:27:40,899 It was the interactive telecommunications department. 214 00:27:40,900 --> 00:27:46,180 They were on the fourth floor and the film department was unlike the eighth, ninth and 10th floor. 215 00:27:46,180 --> 00:27:54,819 And I would go down there and hang out with the students there and get involved in their projects, which include a lot of like a lot of interesting. 216 00:27:54,820 --> 00:28:01,090 We had a public access channel and we would do things like set up a camera shooting out the window at the phone 217 00:28:01,090 --> 00:28:08,590 booth on the corner and call the phone booth and talk to whoever picked up the phone and things like that. 218 00:28:09,190 --> 00:28:16,570 And I was aware of The Kitchen event and I didn't make it, but I was aware of it. 219 00:28:17,350 --> 00:28:22,059 But then somebody, an administrator at the Interactive Telecommunications program, 220 00:28:22,060 --> 00:28:29,980 had mentioned that they were looking for a video crew to help with the event at the Americas Society. 221 00:28:29,980 --> 00:28:33,190 And I volunteered immediately. 222 00:28:34,420 --> 00:28:41,710 I called my friend Scott, who was much more into these things than I was, and he was very excited about it. 223 00:28:42,070 --> 00:28:49,900 And we grabbed I think we had three cameras, Scott had one, and I think I brought two from the department. 224 00:28:50,410 --> 00:28:59,020 And we went up there that night and Scott had the great idea to put videotapes in the cameras and 225 00:29:01,050 --> 00:29:05,010 we videotaped the event. And I'll let Scott pick up. 226 00:29:05,340 --> 00:29:10,770 What happened after we left the event. But the bottom line was that 227 00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:16,140 I had a copy of the material and I created an experimental video. 228 00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:22,470 I had an old editing system that was broken and the control track was broken. 229 00:29:22,470 --> 00:29:30,240 And so I, I created an experimental video with the material from the transmission and a bunch of added material. 230 00:29:30,630 --> 00:29:33,930 And my idea was that the videotape, as you watched it, 231 00:29:33,930 --> 00:29:41,940 would degrade over time. That every time you watched it because the control track was broken, it would fall apart more and more. 232 00:29:42,270 --> 00:29:46,380 And I thought that was sort of in line with the spirit of the project. 233 00:29:46,740 --> 00:29:54,930 And I, I handed out, I don't know, less than 30 of them just to friends and people interested parties. 234 00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:06,959 And somehow years later, I was on the Internet and I just typed in Agrippa and I saw Matthew's website that he was doing. 235 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:11,910 And it was the very exhaustive research into the the project. 236 00:30:11,910 --> 00:30:14,280 And he had a copy of my video on there. 237 00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:20,860 He had an early draft of it, which I have no, I'm very curious how he got it because like I said, there were not many copies floating around. 238 00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:29,700 It was on analogue videotape, but it was that was part of my vision was that it would be a digital file that would not degrade. 239 00:30:29,700 --> 00:30:35,099 Like somehow at the time video was not on the Internet, you know, 240 00:30:35,100 --> 00:30:43,380 So ultimately it was realised that there's now this video copy of my experimental video that won't degrade over time. 241 00:30:43,770 --> 00:30:48,900 And yeah, I'll let the I'll let Scott take it from there. 242 00:30:49,020 --> 00:30:57,389 His participation and I just wanted to jump in real quick to say that the website was actually Alan Liu's Agrippa Files website, 243 00:30:57,390 --> 00:31:03,090 which I also contributed content to, but the site was done by Alan and the team at UCSB. 244 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,110 And how did you know how that video was, how it got to you guys? 245 00:31:08,650 --> 00:31:15,280 Yes. You. You sent it to me, Daniel? No. The original experimental video we have know that. 246 00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:30,160 I do not now. Hi, I'm Scott Gardner, also known as 'Templar'. 247 00:31:30,460 --> 00:31:33,640 This is Roseanne Genji Gardner, also known as 'PseudoPhred' from back in the day. 248 00:31:34,630 --> 00:31:39,840 Like Mark, I was involved in hacking from the early attacks. 249 00:31:40,370 --> 00:31:47,860 My first big hack was in 1981, hacked the White Sands Missile base into the classified section over the ARPANET, 250 00:31:48,430 --> 00:31:53,860 went on to become a phone freak part of the phone line Phantoms. So I was always involved in that kind of culture. 251 00:31:53,860 --> 00:31:56,919 And, you know, we were also fans of William Gibson. 252 00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,400 And the news about Agrippa was huge. 253 00:32:00,700 --> 00:32:07,989 It was it almost felt like there was a challenge to where Kevin Begos was trying to challenge everybody to be the first one to hack it. 254 00:32:07,990 --> 00:32:12,549 So it was on everybody's mind at the time. It was, it was big news. 255 00:32:12,550 --> 00:32:17,920 And so when when I got the phone call from Daniel, it was like Willy Wonka getting the golden ticket. 256 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,980 It was like, I can't believe this has fallen into our laps like this. 257 00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,860 So, yeah, we grabbed our cameras, we jumped in a taxi. 258 00:32:24,460 --> 00:32:28,990 I remember giving the taxi driver an extra 20 to blow some red lights because we were running late. 259 00:32:30,220 --> 00:32:35,170 We got up there and I even had a whole story in my head about if we got caught reporting it 260 00:32:35,500 --> 00:32:39,940 that I would say that the cameras only worked if it was actually recording at the time. 261 00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,889 And then we went back to the office. 262 00:32:44,890 --> 00:32:49,450 I was working at a place called Images Zone at the time, and we had recorded at our height, 263 00:32:49,450 --> 00:32:54,729 we had this brand new height that could play things back and do freeze frames without any rolling or tearing. 264 00:32:54,730 --> 00:33:01,059 So it was a great little deck for transcribing and and then Rosanne here transcribed the entire 265 00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:07,330 thing in a mad session over those next couple of hours and did an incredible job with it. 266 00:33:07,750 --> 00:33:15,680 Now there are still you know, you talk about Agrippa and then the idea of it decaying and of course our memories are decaying there. 267 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:22,180 There are still a few little nitpicky things that, that, that perception I think is a little bit different from reality. 268 00:33:22,180 --> 00:33:24,760 Like for instance, the first 269 00:33:25,770 --> 00:33:34,860 Transmission of it from our office was actually to our friend Chris Invidiata in Buffalo, who then posted it to Usenet. 270 00:33:35,220 --> 00:33:39,240 But it was only half of it had gone through. So he had posted half of it. 271 00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,270 And then a couple of hours later he had a repost of the entire thing. 272 00:33:42,870 --> 00:33:49,770 The following morning I had called up my friend Patrick Kroupa 'Lord Digital' and posted it to MindVox. 273 00:33:50,010 --> 00:33:55,650 But of course now the way Usenet works, it would take sometimes days for things to reach from system to system. 274 00:33:55,890 --> 00:34:00,629 So by from everybody's perception, it certainly looks like my MindVox got it first. 275 00:34:00,630 --> 00:34:07,890 But in reality we had posted it to Usenet just a couple of hours earlier and the rest was history. 276 00:34:08,110 --> 00:34:14,580 You know, we had some discussion about the ethics of it because we respected everybody as artists, 277 00:34:14,910 --> 00:34:19,670 and we really didn't want to break that respect. 278 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:24,120 But it really felt like there was an open challenge to be the first ones to do it. 279 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:29,099 And then on top of the 1500 dollars price tag, which we were just not going to be able to do, 280 00:34:29,100 --> 00:34:36,509 we couldn't really have a good crack at the encryption itself. So that's my story. Rosanne do you want to say anything about the... I mean, 281 00:34:36,510 --> 00:34:42,510 I can say that the story is about the ephemerality of memory, and my memory is really rather slim 282 00:34:42,510 --> 00:34:48,780 On the night I remember the darkness at the, you're sitting in the dark and watching the transmission itself. 283 00:34:49,230 --> 00:34:58,590 I remember rushing and hastily typing and, you know, I think now thinking back on it, and I work now with dementia patients, 284 00:34:58,590 --> 00:35:03,600 I'm a speech language pathologist, about how important it is to maintain memory. 285 00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:09,800 And at the same time knowing that our memory does degrade in such a natural way over time. 286 00:35:09,810 --> 00:35:13,950 It was so authentic and organic to our real experience. 287 00:35:13,950 --> 00:35:22,439 So, you know, it stayed with me in that trace for many years and driving part of the project, it felt like a heist. 288 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:28,049 I was 21 and you know, that little bit of an anarchist in me thought, okay, great, we're going to do something. 289 00:35:28,050 --> 00:35:31,860 We're going to buck the system in some way. But truthfully, it was a beautiful piece. 290 00:35:32,310 --> 00:35:38,190 And in reflection, for middle age, now I can, you know, that tribute to his father, 291 00:35:38,190 --> 00:35:43,649 the idea of these old photographs, the idea of even not knowing who's in the photo, 292 00:35:43,650 --> 00:35:53,010 looking through stacks of family photos and realising that without photographer with you, 293 00:35:53,250 --> 00:36:00,329 without good record, without good notes, it's like you have to attribute something to them that you give your own spin to. 294 00:36:00,330 --> 00:36:03,570 You give your own, your own perspective. 295 00:36:03,990 --> 00:36:08,160 So memory is never truly that perfect. 296 00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:14,460 Despite how faithful to the text we tried to be to make sure that it was accurate. 297 00:36:16,140 --> 00:36:20,940 I think that's, you know, fun to contribute. And in the end, you know, we we just follow the ethos. 298 00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:26,980 A common phrase at the time, which was that information just wants to be free. And that's our story. 299 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,830 I'll hand it back to you. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. 300 00:36:34,350 --> 00:36:44,399 That was wonderful. Thank you. Just could I just ask about the actual the videotape in the machine and the 301 00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:50,790 commissioned to go to the Americas Society and how that actually worked? 302 00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:56,790 Who was it, Kevin, who commissioned you to go there to film the events? 303 00:36:57,060 --> 00:37:00,930 What was the surreptitious element? 304 00:37:00,930 --> 00:37:08,819 And then the other thing I'm interested in is just if you could say a little bit more about this business of transcription, 305 00:37:08,820 --> 00:37:14,700 where you transcribing from the video 306 00:37:14,700 --> 00:37:15,960 What was the purpose of that? 307 00:37:17,550 --> 00:37:30,000 I'll take the Begos piece, which is that he had contacted the interactive telecommunications department at New York University to have a team. 308 00:37:30,390 --> 00:37:36,090 Their concern at the time was that they were going to play it on the laptop that you see in the video. 309 00:37:36,090 --> 00:37:42,510 But the screen is too small for an audience. So they needed to be able to project it onto a projector, which is, I guess, 310 00:37:42,510 --> 00:37:49,200 the technical challenge that the the woman at the head of the video that we watched was talking about the technical 311 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:58,110 challenge of transmitting the scream of the poem unravelling onto a large screen for an audience to watch. 312 00:37:58,710 --> 00:38:06,660 And this administrator was a gentleman named George Goudeau who had been contacted by Kevin Begos to perform this. 313 00:38:07,470 --> 00:38:15,510 It was the one who tapped me and another a student there at the ITP to do this. 314 00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:24,960 I did visit Kevin Begos a few days after and he had had a fax of the MindVox 315 00:38:25,510 --> 00:38:28,010 post. And 316 00:38:28,050 --> 00:38:38,260 it was interesting because he was quite amused, I think, that it had been transcribed and put on the Internet because it existed. 317 00:38:38,830 --> 00:38:45,549 Agrippa, you know, existed only as this poem that was on this disk that you would put into a computer. 318 00:38:45,550 --> 00:38:50,470 And then once you watched it, once it would encrypt itself and you couldn't see it again. 319 00:38:50,470 --> 00:38:59,770 So the actual text was very hard for anybody to know or without purchasing. 320 00:38:59,770 --> 00:39:07,329 I think the cost of the book I thought it was 2000, maybe it was 1500 dollars, you know, and they only made, I think, 200 of them. 321 00:39:07,330 --> 00:39:15,910 So it was a very, you know, it was a very hard to access piece of text. 322 00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:24,190 And I think as Scott was saying, you know, I think at ethos at the time, we were young and, 323 00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:35,510 you know, had a real desire to sort of democratise the text or to make it available to everyone for free, 324 00:39:35,510 --> 00:39:40,190 rather than it being this thing that was, you know, 325 00:39:41,590 --> 00:39:45,250 collectors would buy and it would just sit on their shelves or what have you. 326 00:39:46,990 --> 00:39:52,120 So that was it was more than just, it was a bit of a mission, I think, 327 00:39:52,660 --> 00:39:58,810 for me at least to to take it and make it available to the general public. 328 00:40:00,430 --> 00:40:02,889 I'll let Scott talk about the transmission. 329 00:40:02,890 --> 00:40:09,670 But I would say that I think the assumption when Kevin Begos or the assumption from the ITP's point of view was that 330 00:40:09,670 --> 00:40:17,500 we were there solely for the purpose of projecting this laptop screen onto a large screen that everybody can see. 331 00:40:18,130 --> 00:40:27,160 The other student who was with us felt quite betrayed that we had that Scott had taken it and that they had transcribed it, 332 00:40:27,850 --> 00:40:33,040 that was a real break of trust, that we had done that. 333 00:40:33,930 --> 00:40:48,910 I'll talk about the transcription. Well, from a technical point of view, yes, we recorded it on hI8, which was a great format for that kind of thing. 334 00:40:49,210 --> 00:40:53,530 And at the office I had a computer system and a high 8 tech side by side. 335 00:40:53,830 --> 00:40:58,180 So we just played back to the tape and Rosanne furiously typed away on it. 336 00:40:58,330 --> 00:41:01,420 I don't know if you if there's anything else you want to say about the actual transcription. 337 00:41:01,780 --> 00:41:06,339 No, I think it's like I said, it was important to me to be as faithful as possible, to be original. 338 00:41:06,340 --> 00:41:09,700 And we had the, you know, thankfully we had the technology to freeze frame. 339 00:41:09,710 --> 00:41:14,160 Otherwise it would have been such a challenge in the replay of the audio again and again. 340 00:41:14,170 --> 00:41:17,830 So it was less time than maybe a traditional audio transcription might have been. 341 00:41:19,670 --> 00:41:25,790 Here's a funny little anecdote just to add, the irony is, 342 00:41:25,790 --> 00:41:31,280 is that the discs in the books actually had different versions of the story to begin with. 343 00:41:32,580 --> 00:41:46,100 And so, you know, the one that was chosen for what was the main showcasing of it at The Kitchen table was one version of the story. 344 00:41:46,730 --> 00:41:54,860 It was always the intent of Bill to have the story against, sort of be a virus, if you will. 345 00:41:54,860 --> 00:42:03,260 And for there to be different versions of the transmission posted on different bulletin boards. 346 00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,890 And that started with the origination story and the book itself. 347 00:42:07,310 --> 00:42:13,640 So he had a couple of different versions. There were slight variations just in wording. 348 00:42:14,150 --> 00:42:18,410 And so, you know, if you go and you look at some of the archived versions, 349 00:42:18,410 --> 00:42:24,080 you guys have your version and then you see some other folks did screenshots of what we eventually did, 350 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:28,610 which was posting it on different bulletin boards. And as it was mentioned earlier, 351 00:42:28,610 --> 00:42:36,050 those was bulletin boards and shared it with other bulletin boards and it sort of was changed and it grew and it became, 352 00:42:36,620 --> 00:42:40,310 in essence, the first piece of viral text, if you will. 353 00:42:41,030 --> 00:42:53,360 He was very much into nostalgia and antiques and books and very much about the idea of the temporary as society in many ways. 354 00:42:54,260 --> 00:43:02,750 So, you know, it all started with the physical books, and then that ethos evolved into the transmission. 355 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:08,810 And again, as it was, as I pointed out earlier, we weren't able to do the grandiose idea where we were, 356 00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:14,750 in essence, broadcasting to all these different venues simultaneously in one shot with, 357 00:43:14,750 --> 00:43:20,600 you know, watch parties at each ones so that these folks were recording what was going on 358 00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,950 at The Kitchen and then thankfully preserved it and then shared it from there. 359 00:43:25,220 --> 00:43:29,000 But we were also sending it out onto bulletin boards. 360 00:43:29,490 --> 00:43:35,630 You know, up until and, you know, leading into that night and then, of course, from that night on. 361 00:43:35,660 --> 00:43:40,670 So, yeah, there's I'm not sure how many versions of the story there are. 362 00:43:40,670 --> 00:43:46,520 I don't think Bill know either. I think his intent was that other people would even change the words themselves and 363 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:51,589 have it grow as an organism in some way and that it would take on a life of its own, 364 00:43:51,590 --> 00:43:57,680 which again, clearly it has because we're all here gathered together 30 years later in one 365 00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:01,700 of the most prestigious universities in the world discussing this project. 366 00:44:01,730 --> 00:44:03,650 So there you go. He was right. 367 00:44:06,210 --> 00:44:18,330 I wonder whether there are any questions either on the chat or in the room that people might like to ask about this. 368 00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:25,739 Let's start with Justine, who obviously is getting her PhD on this. 369 00:44:25,740 --> 00:44:31,650 And I think this symposium must have been pretty good for you, Justine. 370 00:44:32,130 --> 00:44:40,140 Thank you, Chris. Yes, actually, my question might relate to exactly what Scott and Rosanne and Marc were saying. 371 00:44:40,470 --> 00:44:50,050 And actually, it's kind of for you John and Lauren. Compared to that, because right now we saw the launch event of the Americas Society. 372 00:44:50,340 --> 00:44:57,930 Marc spoke about the bulletin boards. But I remember when we had the discussion together, you said that it was different at The Kitchen. 373 00:44:58,410 --> 00:45:02,830 You know, that basically you commissioned somebody, 374 00:45:02,830 --> 00:45:10,990 an artist to read the poem there because you were not able actually to transmit the pom to other locations. 375 00:45:11,010 --> 00:45:15,060 So I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that, the choice of the artist. 376 00:45:15,270 --> 00:45:23,850 And also earlier you mentioned the Society of the Americas, The Kitchen, the different vibe uptown, downtown and choice of people. 377 00:45:26,450 --> 00:45:35,480 Well, so what happened and I was referring to the press release that Lauren read, which is the 378 00:45:37,070 --> 00:45:41,510 16th of October of that year. And so at that point. 379 00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:51,070 We were still presenting it, but there would be a transmission and then we would be connected to different sites. 380 00:45:51,400 --> 00:46:01,660 And if you look at the contract that you showed, that's actually the date of the day of the presentation at The Kitchen on December Nineth. 381 00:46:01,870 --> 00:46:14,260 So it was up until the last minute we were, you know, as Marc notes, we were hoping that. 382 00:46:15,550 --> 00:46:22,700 New York. Well, Bell telephone would come through with the lines that we needed, which never happened. 383 00:46:22,750 --> 00:46:26,350 Etc., etc., etc. In the the famous switch 384 00:46:26,350 --> 00:46:35,410 56 lines. Yeah, exactly. So we were in a building that had four regular telephone lines and that wasn't going to be able to happen. 385 00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:41,819 So. As a producer, you know, the show must go on. 386 00:46:41,820 --> 00:46:46,370 And we had sold tickets and a certain amount of press and all of that. 387 00:46:46,910 --> 00:46:55,080 So. I mean, that we have we actually had the perfect person to be involved in this. 388 00:46:55,090 --> 00:47:01,610 And this is the composer Robert Ashley, Rob 389 00:47:02,260 --> 00:47:06,070 Ashley was not only on the board of directors of the kitchen, 390 00:47:06,700 --> 00:47:16,930 but he was a contemporary of John Cage and had created an entire type of it was what he called opera for television, 391 00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:23,440 which back then kind of meant a lot more than now because everybody can have their own television channel today. 392 00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:31,060 But back then, it was a very special thing, and his specific style was focussed on the spoken word. 393 00:47:33,290 --> 00:47:46,890 So. Reading the texts that William Gibson talked about or had written and thinking about style, which was very deliberate and 394 00:47:48,090 --> 00:47:58,440 kinda slow and having watched the speed of the app presenting the text, it was absolutely perfect. 395 00:47:59,010 --> 00:48:10,350 So we set up in our second floor space, which was a more flexible studio space, and it was a very interesting experience. 396 00:48:11,870 --> 00:48:17,300 Hearing the story from the Americas Society jogged my memory as well. 397 00:48:18,650 --> 00:48:22,730 These days it's like HDMI cable into a projector. 398 00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:29,090 You know, back then you could not connect your computer to a projector and the projector. 399 00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:35,930 That three gun, Sony, it took about an hour to set up because you 400 00:48:37,390 --> 00:48:41,620 actually had to register it the way they registered three colour printing and things like that, 401 00:48:41,620 --> 00:48:47,260 a grid that had to match and then you had to point a camera at the screen. 402 00:48:47,830 --> 00:48:49,000 And so that's what we did. 403 00:48:49,000 --> 00:49:01,600 We had a camera pointed at the screen with a large projection and Bob at a table in a chair, basically reading it as it scrolled by on the screen. 404 00:49:02,140 --> 00:49:09,310 Centred in a room that was completely black around him with the audience sitting around. 405 00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,090 And it was a very, very sort of special event that way. 406 00:49:13,570 --> 00:49:16,690 And we did record it as well, the recording 407 00:49:16,690 --> 00:49:21,550 should probably be part of The Kitchen archive that's now held at the Getty. 408 00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:33,910 On the subject of recordings and tapes, I think Matt wanted to come in. 409 00:49:38,020 --> 00:49:42,040 Yes. Thank you. I do have something to 410 00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,400 share. And I hope I can get a good camera view. 411 00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:52,350 … Okay, [trying to get a good view of the object]. 412 00:49:52,390 --> 00:49:55,470 We saw Rosehammer written on it. 413 00:49:55,510 --> 00:50:02,650 …. if you unblur your zoom screen, oh there you go. 414 00:50:03,580 --> 00:50:07,260 It will work. Let me take a quick moment to do that. 415 00:50:07,260 --> 00:50:16,649 So what I am holding is a three quarter inch and CSC videotape. 416 00:50:16,650 --> 00:50:22,200 This is a copy, as I understand it, of the original HI8 tape. 417 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:26,670 And this is the source. 418 00:50:26,670 --> 00:50:34,050 There we are. This is the source for the footage that is publicly available on YouTube. 419 00:50:35,370 --> 00:50:43,170 The casing, you'll notice says Re-Agrippa, which is the title Daniel you gave to your remix. 420 00:50:44,310 --> 00:50:52,830 There's 'Rosehammer' with what appears ironically enough to be a copyright symbol. On the spine 421 00:50:52,830 --> 00:50:59,280 is your what I take to be your sigil crossed rose and hammer and 422 00:51:00,830 --> 00:51:06,790 the tape itself, the label reads 'Agrippa Scott's view' 423 00:51:07,740 --> 00:51:14,970 And so this is the tape you had sent me, Daniel, in 2007 or 2008. 424 00:51:15,420 --> 00:51:19,440 We digitised the video here at the University of Maryland. 425 00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,820 And again, that became the source of the recording that's currently on YouTube. 426 00:51:24,060 --> 00:51:32,030 What I would like to do with this, with everybody's blessing, is contribute it to the collection at the battalion. 427 00:51:32,240 --> 00:51:38,410 And I can correspond with Chris about the procedure for that afterwards. 428 00:51:40,950 --> 00:51:44,490 I'll be in touch immediately, Matt, thanks very much. Thank you. 429 00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:51,780 The copyright was ironically placed. I assume so. 430 00:51:52,290 --> 00:51:59,280 You know, that is funny sort of everyone took a bit of ownership of the project in a way. 431 00:51:59,340 --> 00:52:05,010 It was supposed to be a project where no one had ownership of it. The open source story, if you will. 432 00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:15,240 And during the exhibition, at The Kitchen, we were still actually posting it to other bulletin boards at the time. 433 00:52:16,830 --> 00:52:24,209 And, you know, it's important to remember that the I didn't have the opportunity to go to the Americas society that but The Kitchen 434 00:52:24,210 --> 00:52:35,520 experience what really made that exhibition of this premiere exhibition I should say of all things Agrippa, was the book. 435 00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:44,310 It was the transmission. It was the curiosity of this, the idea of virality, of story. 436 00:52:45,090 --> 00:52:53,760 It was just an amazing group of people that got together to really just try to understand and make sense of. 437 00:52:54,990 --> 00:53:02,879 where the future was going and what we could do to empower artists and 438 00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:10,320 storytellers alike to have a new form of self-expression and to play with that medium. 439 00:53:11,370 --> 00:53:15,540 And I think that was probably the most exciting thing for me. 440 00:53:15,570 --> 00:53:24,180 There was just the excitement of uncertainty and having our the opportunity to have that forum 441 00:53:25,230 --> 00:53:31,350 at The Kitchen where a lot of artists had come through throughout the years just to try again, 442 00:53:31,380 --> 00:53:38,310 you know, just wacky things as well as very academic things as well as just incredible art. 443 00:53:39,570 --> 00:53:42,840 So it was a special moment. 444 00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:48,200 We had. John, I don't know if you recall, you came to the party that we did as well prior to that. 445 00:53:48,210 --> 00:53:53,250 I just was I was just digging this up. I'll share it real quick. 446 00:53:53,250 --> 00:53:56,450 Is you remember this? 447 00:53:56,460 --> 00:54:02,010 So we did a party prior to the exhibition at 448 00:54:04,210 --> 00:54:08,200 The Kitchen at a place on the Lower East Side called Stella's. 449 00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:12,640 I think it turned into like a Chinese restaurant later on. 450 00:54:13,030 --> 00:54:24,519 But you can see here the invite was burnt. So the theme of this sort of old ancient work carried through even into 451 00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:30,970 the party invites and into the virality of the net cast itself. 452 00:54:30,980 --> 00:54:37,870 So just a little side note, I hope I didn't take too much time sharing that I thought it was a nice anecdote. 453 00:54:37,870 --> 00:54:46,000 That's great because yesterday we saw a copy that belonged to the collector Allan Chasanoff and he had an invitation inside and we had been wondering since, 454 00:54:46,270 --> 00:54:51,399 was it an invitation to the launch event or was it to this private party beforehand? 455 00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,060 So we have the answer. 456 00:54:55,840 --> 00:55:03,790 Thank you. So I'm conscious of time and at the same time I would like to continue the discussion for a long time. 457 00:55:03,790 --> 00:55:07,029 But what I'm offering to do is that, 458 00:55:07,030 --> 00:55:10,839 I had a question for Lauren, so if you could answer that question 459 00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:18,310 that could be amazing. And then for everyone, I know plenty of people who are writing in the chat from the Q and A, 460 00:55:18,580 --> 00:55:27,340 so we have a huge Q&A session that's going to be led by Jason Scott-Warren from 4:15pm to 5pm UK time, 461 00:55:27,700 --> 00:55:35,350 so everyone can come back and ask all of their questions and I hope you, if still have time, 462 00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:48,100 Marc, Rosanne, Scott and Daniel, and Matt who have been joining us from across the Atlantic, to come back and the Q&A session 463 00:55:48,100 --> 00:55:51,130 that would great because I'm sure there will be more questions for you. 464 00:55:51,430 --> 00:55:53,800 So yes, my next question is for you, Lauren. 465 00:55:54,220 --> 00:56:05,320 And we talked about the difference between The Kitchen and the Americas society, and what you mentioned about the uptown, downtown. In those days, 466 00:56:05,410 --> 00:56:12,050 there was a big distinction between uptown and downtown, especially in the streets. 467 00:56:12,820 --> 00:56:16,840 And now downtown is basically mostly Brooklyn. 468 00:56:17,110 --> 00:56:22,929 What kind of Brooklyn would be similar to that. Real estate 469 00:56:22,930 --> 00:56:26,290 is much different now. So there is the downtown. 470 00:56:26,290 --> 00:56:28,570 Let's talk a lot about real estate as well. 471 00:56:28,990 --> 00:56:40,180 Artists and creative people could afford to live in the downtown and as a result of a whole culture evolve, it became very strong. 472 00:56:40,540 --> 00:56:49,120 And so we were part of the downtown. And also our building, the building that The Kitchen had moved into was an old icehouse. 473 00:56:49,900 --> 00:56:54,460 So it was also perfect for this sort of event because it was like a fortress 474 00:56:55,090 --> 00:57:00,430 and there were very few windows inside and all the walls were painted black. 475 00:57:00,430 --> 00:57:07,100 We had two black box event spaces, so that was it. 476 00:57:07,810 --> 00:57:11,740 For whatever reason, it all came together esthetically as well. 477 00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:15,940 And you mentioned the choice 478 00:57:15,940 --> 00:57:19,269 between Robert Ashley and Penn Jillette. 479 00:57:19,270 --> 00:57:23,679 Penn Jillette would have been a perfect choice for uptown. And actually for uptown, 480 00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:27,100 he was considered wild while wit downtown 481 00:57:27,790 --> 00:57:33,230 it would be Robert Ashley. 482 00:57:33,910 --> 00:57:50,680 That's great. Wonderful. Well, we'll take a quick break for tea and I think till 3:15pm and but meanwhile, please join me in thanking all of us panellists here and abroad. 483 00:57:51,430 --> 00:57:52,850 So, thank you.