From 1963 to 1977, Bruno Munari explored the creative potential of photocopying machines, treating xerography as an artistic medium through performances, exhibitions, publications, and collaborations with Xerox and Rank Xerox.

Munari produced his xerographies by moving images, patterns, and textures as they were being scanned, generating unique and unrepeatable compositions. Rather than using the photocopier to reproduce an existing image, he transformed it into a tool for creating new ones. Through movement, he explored xerography as a form of drawing with surfaces rather than lines, producing visual effects that conventional photography could not achieve.

Seven years after his performative participation in the 1970 Venice Biennale, where he presented an experimental, interactive laboratory equipped with a working Rank Xerox machine, Munari returned to the aesthetic unpredictability of photocopying in Xerografie Originali. Conceived as a suite of systematic “exercises in style” conducted with new machines, the project explored a range of possibilities, from textures and patterns to “direct” self-portraits and colour photocopies. The results of these experiments are organized into categories and examined in Munari’s introductory text:

“Systematic experimentation is carried out on the instrument to leave, if possible, no case unexplored. Every element of the process is analyzed in terms of its possibilities and tested in every respect. Experimentation, therefore, should not be directed toward a specific end; the results, if necessary, can be given a specific purpose. The sole aim of experimentation is to obtain the maximum amount of data, precisely for possible future use. The analysis will begin with the instrument in all its complexity, as well as with an examination of how it functions. Since it is a reproduction device, it will be necessary to determine its reading limits – that is, how it perceives and reproduces black areas, and the maximum thickness of a mark that it can reproduce accurately. There are several models of electrostatic copiers, and this initial analysis must be carried out for each model. The adjustment of toner density must also be understood. It must be possible to obtain a very clear or a very dark reproduction and to determine the possibilities of visual communication.”

Munari’s early investigations into the possibilities of the Xerox machine resonate with later experimental approaches to photocopying, including Alighiero Boetti’s 111 (1992) and Sigmar Polke’s Daphne (2004), both of which are part of the Metabooks collection.