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Electrography [electrophotography; xerography].

Term for processes involving the interaction of light and electricity to produce images and for the production of original works of art by these processes. Since these processes are used by nearly all photocopiers, the production of such works has also been referred to as ‘copy art’, although this is misleading, since it suggests the mere replication of already existing works. Artistic photocopies were made in California in the late 1950s, but electrography proper as an international art form dates from the early 1960s, when electrographers developed its basic techniques. Bruno Munari’s pioneering works, workshops and publications, starting in 1963, foreshadowed the preponderant role played by Europe in the history of electrography, to which important exhibitions at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (1980) and in Valencia (1988) later testified. Electrographs vary widely in size and can be over 1 km in length; materials used include not only paper but also canvas and leather. In the mid-1970s xeroradiography (a xerographic process in which an X-ray gun is used to obtain X-ray pictures) and telecopy respectively gave rise to electroradiographic art and fax art. The advent in the 1980s of the digital copier, with its creative programmes, also created new possibilities, and from 1989 the colour laser copier could be connected to a computer or a video camera, thereby increasing the creative potential of electrography. At the end of the 20th century it was one of the most practised technological art forms, with Pol Bury and David Hockney among its prominent exponents. The Museo Internacional de Electrografía in Cuenca, Spain, is the leading institution devoted to the subject.

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