[p5js] A tribute to Flora Stacey: universal ASCII art self-portrait

Gallery
1

I think it’s a good day to mention Flora Stacey - the inventor of the typewriter art (a pre-computer technique of creating images from characters available in typewriters).

In 1898 Stacey created first known piece of typewriter art — an image of a butterfly composed of brackets, dashes, slashes, and an asterisk (available among the punches of her typewriter). In addition to links with concrete and visual poetry typewriter art is also the ancestor of ASCII and ANSI art (a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the printable characters defined by the ASCII/ANSI Standard).

“A tribute to Flora Stacey: universal ASCII art self-portrait.” is a simple, interactive artwork based on the ASCII art technique in it’s animated form. It is also a game with the very idea of self-portrait, text, poetry, visuality, and various ways of looking and observing present in the history of art.

“A tribute to Flora Stacey: universal ASCII art self-portrait.” is available online here: https://www.tetoki.eu/atributetoflorastacey.html

The work requires access to the camera (built-in laptop or mobile device or USB) - but the image is not recorded or transmitted anywhere.

4 Likes
2

Thank you for sharing this! I’m a fan of your underlying p5.asciiart library as well.

1 Like
3

Thanks! Ended up reading this article - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/the-lost-ancestors-of-ascii-art/283445/

1 Like
4

jeremydouglass, saberkhan

Thank you very much! I’m glad, both, the sketch and the library met with your interest. saberkhan - thank you for lint to the article, it’s really valuable.

I have plans to develop both the ASCII Art library itself and the introduction of several subsequent works that refer to visual poetry.

In the meantime you may be interested also in my earlier sketch “Mechanical Garden after Tytus Czyżewski” (available here: https://www.tetoki.eu/ogrodmechaniczny.html) - it’s also connected to visual poetry (but less to the ASCII art). Czyżewski was a Polish artist and one of the pioneers of visual and concrete poetry. I think, that, apart from Poland, not many people know his work, but it is worth getting to know them.

1 Like