Georges Brassens
Print
ca.1968 (made)
ca.1968 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
This portrait of the French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, is composed entirely of the computer characters M, W, O, + and *. Created in ca.1968 by artist Jaume Estapa, it is an early example of ASCII art, a term used to refer to text based art. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, which was a character coding created to enable the representation of text in computers. Early computer printers were not able to output graphical images and so characters were used instead of graphical marks.
Traditionally ASCII art is formed from any number of printable characters out of a total of 95. In this image, Estapa has employed only a small number of symbols and has overprinted to define areas of dark or shade. The alternate light grey stripes of the background were a characteristic of early computer printing paper. They were designed to make it easier to follow lines when reading printed code or wording.
Works such as this portrait were produced using an early form of impact printer, such as a daisy wheel printer. The daisy wheel printer housed a central disc off of which extended arms or 'petals' that contained raised characters. The printer would rotate to the correct character, which would then be struck by a hammer and forced onto the printer ribbon beneath, leaving a printed impression on the paper. Daisy wheel printers were noisy and could only print around 10 to 75 characters per second. By the 1980s they had been replaced by inkjet and laser printers, which were much cheaper and faster.
Traditionally ASCII art is formed from any number of printable characters out of a total of 95. In this image, Estapa has employed only a small number of symbols and has overprinted to define areas of dark or shade. The alternate light grey stripes of the background were a characteristic of early computer printing paper. They were designed to make it easier to follow lines when reading printed code or wording.
Works such as this portrait were produced using an early form of impact printer, such as a daisy wheel printer. The daisy wheel printer housed a central disc off of which extended arms or 'petals' that contained raised characters. The printer would rotate to the correct character, which would then be struck by a hammer and forced onto the printer ribbon beneath, leaving a printed impression on the paper. Daisy wheel printers were noisy and could only print around 10 to 75 characters per second. By the 1980s they had been replaced by inkjet and laser printers, which were much cheaper and faster.
Object details
Category | |
Object type | |
Title | Georges Brassens (assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | Impact print on computer paper |
Brief description | Impact print on computer paper, 'Georges Brassens', by Jaume Estapa. ca.1968. |
Physical description | Impact print on computer paper with sprockets: depicts a portrait of Georges Brassens made up of the computer characters M, 0, +. |
Dimensions |
|
Marks and inscriptions |
|
Credit line | Given by the Computer Arts Society, supported by System Simulation Ltd, London |
Subject depicted | |
Summary | This portrait of the French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, is composed entirely of the computer characters M, W, O, + and *. Created in ca.1968 by artist Jaume Estapa, it is an early example of ASCII art, a term used to refer to text based art. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, which was a character coding created to enable the representation of text in computers. Early computer printers were not able to output graphical images and so characters were used instead of graphical marks. Traditionally ASCII art is formed from any number of printable characters out of a total of 95. In this image, Estapa has employed only a small number of symbols and has overprinted to define areas of dark or shade. The alternate light grey stripes of the background were a characteristic of early computer printing paper. They were designed to make it easier to follow lines when reading printed code or wording. Works such as this portrait were produced using an early form of impact printer, such as a daisy wheel printer. The daisy wheel printer housed a central disc off of which extended arms or 'petals' that contained raised characters. The printer would rotate to the correct character, which would then be struck by a hammer and forced onto the printer ribbon beneath, leaving a printed impression on the paper. Daisy wheel printers were noisy and could only print around 10 to 75 characters per second. By the 1980s they had been replaced by inkjet and laser printers, which were much cheaper and faster. |
Collection | |
Accession number | E.354-2009 |
About this object record
Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.
You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.
Suggest feedback
You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.
Suggest feedback
Record created | June 30, 2009 |
Record URL |
Download as: JSON