The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), birthplace of much of the technology that made the personal computer possible, is also working to chart new pathways for the future of the book. In the summer of 1999, the Research in Experimental Documents (RED) group at PARC asked San Francisco Center for the Book for help recruiting book artists to work in the PARC Artist-in-Residence program (PAIR). The result was a remarkable collaboration involving eight artists working with advanced digital tools in a unique studio constructed as part of an exhibition at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

The show, "XFR: eXperiments in the Future of Reading," featured spectacular technology in development at PARC, and posited new forms for the delivery and, by implication, generation of text. The RED group, working with the Center for the Book, put together a studio which included a laser cutter, a Docucolor 40 (Xerox's top-of-the-line color copier/printer), a Macintosh workstation provided by Apple, a high-end Agfa scanner, and a full array of graphics software supplied by Adobe Systems. Artists were in residence at the museum for the entire course of the exhibition, from March 2 - September 4, 2000.

The artists who worked in the XFR studio -- Jocelyn Bergen, Michael Bartalos, Kathleen Burch, Ann Chamberlain, Julie Chen, Charles Hobson, Brian Janusiak and Steve Woodall P came away with a renewed belief in the power of the computer as a tool for the creation of artists' books, and the determination to see similar studios constructed elsewhere.

Some of this work generated in the studio will be on display at the San Francisco Center for the Book from November 9 through February 15, 2002, and the artists will discuss their experiments & experiences in a panel discussion, moderated by Anne Balsamo, on November 27 at 7 pm.

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