Vernacular, Dot Matrix Portrait, 1975
printed matter
35.6 × 28.6 cm
Collection of Bre Pettis
PION.2025.006
Description
USA, 1980s. 14" x 11 1/4", printed matter.
Vernacular dot-matrix portrait printed at a mall computer-portrait booth. Printed text along the bottom reads "space age computer portrait." A photographic likeness of the sitter has been converted to a half-tone image rendered as a grid of impact-printed dots — the technique that powered early consumer dot-matrix printers and a populist counterpart to the same year's gallery-bound character-substitution work by Knowlton, Harmon, and their Bell Labs peers.