www.adelfaure.net/docs/mertz

Hi everyone !

Face Study, 2023, interactive ASCII art using Jgs Font

Blue Jay, 2023, textmode artwork using Textor

Untitled, 2025, live coded audio synthesis and custom text mode using Textor

What is ASCII art ?

Source: oldcompcz.github.io/jgs/joan_stark/

Cat at the computer, Joan G Stark aka jgs, avril 1997, ASCII

They are "non-graphical graphics". Its palette is limited to the symbols and characters that you have available to you on your computer keyboard.

Joan G Stark, 1999, The History of ASCII (text) Art

Every system got its own ASCII art

Source: text-mode.org (goto80)

PERCEVAL, RTBF Liège, Belgique, Juin 1981, Teletext

Source: text-mode.org (goto80)

Tri Nebula BBS screen, Shoeshine Boy, 1988, PETSCII

Source: text-mode.org (goto80)

Rambone, Kung Fu Master, 1987, animated ATASCII with sound

Source: 16colo.rs

The Fox and the Goat, Georges Ramos, 1992, ANSI

Starship BBS screen, ANSI-Mation, 1990, ANSI

Source: ascii.mozz.us

Source: angelfire.com/art/lorriesascii

Hands of Time, Lorrie Carrigton, late 1990 early 2000, ASCII colorised using HTML

A few contemporay artworks

Snow leopards don't live on Christmas Island, Dan Farrimond, 2016, Teletext

The Giant's Causeway, SimplySarah, 2021 - TELETEXT

Text mode arts ?

Fear the Creeper, Polyducks, 2019, custom text mode

BEWARE THE CURSED JEWEL OF SIR TEXTMODE!, Batfeula, 2024, custom text mode

Intergalactic post office, Polyducks, 2024, custom text mode

Before computers, typewritting art

Whisper Piece, Bob Cobbing, 1969, typewritting

New York, James Cook, 2020, typewritting

Before typewritters, "creative typography"

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Student practice, around 1950, typesetting

Nicht So!, Paule Renner, 1927, typesetting

Hans Orlowski, Otto Goedecker, 1928, typesetting

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Albert Schiller's typographic artworks, between 1920 and 1950, typesetting

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Specimen for competition, John Knight, 1890, brass rules

Carte de Leipzig, Breitkopf, 1776, typometry

Blocs modulables "Dekora", Gujarati Type Foundry Bombay, 1930s

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Saint Juan Evangelista, 1689, typesetting

First "Fleurons", Giovanni et Alberto Alvise, 1478, typesetting

Is ASCII art an ornemental crime ?

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Excerpt from specimem showed during a Koppermaandag, 1851

Improvisation, Alfred P. Fluhr, late XVIII - typesetting

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Improvisation, Alfred P. Fluhr, fin XVIII - Presse typographique

Printer got fired for playing with type gadgets

Source: oldcompcz.github.io/jgs/joan_stark/ and Design Boom

Excerpt from "Ascii art today and tomorrow", Joan G. Stark, 1999

Sans titre, Glitchr, 2011, unicode and glitch art on Facebook

"The more primitive a people, the more they use ornaments. An Indian overloads everything—every boat, every rudder, every arrow—with decorations. Demanding decoration is to place oneself on the same level as the Indian. Our inner Indian must be conquered. The Indian says: This woman is beautiful because she has golden rings in her nose and ears. Men of higher culture say: This woman is beautiful because she does not wear rings in her nose or ears. The whole of humanity should aim to find beauty in the form itself instead of depending on decoration.'" Tschichold continues: "Today we see in the desire to decorate a tendency based on ignorance that our century must suppress."

Jan Tschichold quoting Adolf Loos in The Neue Typographie published in 1928

An ideal, not a nostalgia

Source: adelfaure.net/docs/heikki_garden (Heikki Lotvonen)

Excerpt form a article dy Beatrice Warde, written between 1926 and 1958, published in Monotype Recorder volume 42

The lure of ASCII art might not be in the nostalgia of how it looks, but what it represents: the ideals of "cyberspace". It stands for a wistful longing for those pre-internet days when corporations hadn't yet taken control of our digital day-to-day and the community was still in control of organising itself.

Heikki Lotvonen, 2022, ASCII art: From a Commodity Into an Obscurity

Text mode tools

There is no standard for text mode animation, each artist got its own process, tool or software.

TheDraw

Telepaint

Pablodraw

Playscii

Aciddraw

Moebius

Durdraw

Edit.tf

Darkdraw

Lvllvl

Stone Script

Rex Paint

Text mode animation

Untitled, Jellica, 2017 - PETSCII video conversion using Lvllvl

Quack quack, Harmonie Aupetit, 2023 - text editor and raster graphics editor (Photoshop)

Dandelion, Joninscii, 2021 - text editor and raster graphics editor (Figma)

I see the rain, Blippypixel, 2021 - Teletext using Telepaint

Text mode video games

Rainy day remastered, TouloutouMou, 2022

Whispers in the Moss, Uncultured Games, 2023

Abandoned Cyber-punk game project, Jackson Lango, 2017

Warsim

ASCIIdent

Black Sanctuary RPG

CandyBox

Cog Mind

LumASCII

My work

                               +--------------+                                 
                               | Free license |                                 
                               +--------------+                                 
                                      |                                         
            +-------------------------+--------------------------+              
            |                         |                          |              
        +-------+             +----------------+       +-------------------+    
        | Fonts |             | Textmode tools |       | Live-coding tools |    
        +-------+             +----------------+       +-------------------+    
            |                         |                          |              
            +-------+-----------------+---------------------+----+              
                    |                 |                     |                   
              +----------+        +-------+             +-------+               
              | Artworks |        | Games |             | Music |               
              +----------+        +-------+             +-------+               
                                                                                
                                                                                
             I create my own tools or I use free license software               
       I'm using linux, making most of my work using a text editor (Vim)        
                 For making fonts I use Inkscape and Fontforge