ansi.notchill.com
For those nerds on my flist (like there are any of those right?) how many of you recollect the ansi art scene from the 90s bbs era? then you may be interested in my pal acidjazz's ansi art blog and ansi art email list which is currently chronicling the process of putting together images to display in an irl format for an irl ansi art show at twenty GOTO 10 on Sat Jan 12, 2008.
For those nonnerds on my list, here is a brief primer on ansi art from the site:
ANSI art is a computer artform using text characters on computers with MS-DOS (before windows) which was popular in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s. It was mainly used for BBSes, which was software that would allow users to dial into the computer over a phone line and, using a terminal program, interact with it, read/post on forums, and exchanging messages, exchange files. being only text on a terminal, artists never really pictured this as a limitation.
the art was all typed out by hand using the above characters available, mainly using the solid and shaded blocks. they also used escape codes to specify colors for their work, 16 foreground and 8 background were available.
in 1990, as ANSI became more popular, art groups started to form releasing monthly art packs. for this show i chose two of my personal favorite artists and their work, they were both, at one point, in the most popular at group called ACiD. and primarily went by the names of “LordJazz (1d)” and “Somms” (so).
