‘E-Book Backup’, A Photocopied Hardbound Edition of a Kindle E-Book

In his 2012 project E-Book backup, artist Jesse England (previously) used a photocopier to create a physical copy of an Amazon Kindle e-book. England created each page of the “backup” by simply placing the Kindle on the photocopier’s scanner. The reader thus has the experience of reading a photocopied image of each digital page from the e-book. For the project England chose an e-book of George Orwell‘s classic book Nineteen Eighty-Four–as England notes the book was the subject of a controversial e-book recall by Amazon back in 2009. For good measure, England also uploaded a digital version of his paper backup to his Kindle. He does note that the E-Book backup “is best viewed in paper format.”

“The backup is best viewed in paper format.”

photos by Jesse England