Although the shape, size and makeup of the modern office is in a state of constant flux, one piece of machinery that is consistently at the centre of it all is the photocopier.
Particularly in its modern guise as a cloud-based printer, scanner and multifunction device, a photocopier is an essential part of almost every office, even if they are remote or hybrid-based or even if they aim for a paper-less philosophy.
Whilst we regularly celebrate photocopiers and ensure that businesses keep running through our comprehensive support and repair services, it is rare to see photocopiers celebrated by the art and photography world.
However, a series of exhibitions have not only celebrated photocopying for providing affordable, tangible access to an entire world of artistic expression, but have also deliberately treated the imperfections and flaws of historic photocopiers as artistic flourishes.
Why are an art curator and dozens of photographers using photocopies to bring back physical art? And has photocopying always been as vital a part of the arts world as it is part of the office?
Why Is There A Photocopying Art Exhibition?
Typically, a photocopying exhibition would be focused on new models, trends in the business world and future technologies that will help streamline the workflow of businesses.
However, the Hard Copy exhibitions curated and organised by Aaron Stern take a very different approach, celebrating what photocopiers bring to art by stripping it down to its fundamentals and how it unifies the entire breadth of photography and art by using the same printing techniques.
It was first unveiled in 2024 in New York, before a 2025 exhibition in 2025 before returning to New York’s International Centre of Photography.
According to Mr Stern’s blog on the exhibition, the goal is to inspire people to look at art not through a small digital screen but in person and in tangible, large-scale forms.
For Mr Stern and others, the photocopier fits a similar role to the instant camera and is seeing a revival of interest for many of the same reasons:
- The tangible nature of photocopies means that choosing and curating what to print is a more deliberate process.
- The low-cost nature of photocopying means that the often-prohibitive cost of high-quality photography printing is no longer a barrier.
- There is a greater scope for experimentation due to lower costs to enter.
- The unified printing medium means that a group show featuring a widely divergent range of artists and photographers will retain a consistent visual style.
- Analogue photocopiers add texture and noise to photography that itself can create artistic effects. Hard Copy themselves describe this as a “visual language”.
Has Photocopying Always Been Important To The Arts?
Photocopying has historically been a key driver of underground art and literature, as it allows people to cheaply create duplicates without the costs involved in mastering and professional duplication.
This was the catalyst for zine culture; whilst zines existed before the first Xerox machines using very early mechanical photocopying techniques, the speed and affordability of photocopies made possible through these machines and the print shops allowed people to distribute physical copies of publications and works of art without a huge upfront cost.
The most famous example of how this changed culture was by shaping the early career of Matt Groening, who would use photocopiers and print shops to produce copies of his underground Life in Hell comic series.
Eventually, this underground popularity would translate not only into major publisher interest but would directly lead to the artist being offered the chance to produce an animated cartoon, which would lead to the creation of The Simpsons.
Besides this, zine culture, underground art and underground literature relied for many years on photocopiers, which created a particular aesthetic style that is still associated with the former to this day, even with access to more modern MFD devices, which allow for greater visual fidelity.
What Can An Art Exhibition Teach Businesses About Photocopying?
Ultimately, the photocopier’s reliability, set of features and capabilities have made it an unsung hero when it comes to small-scale printing solutions, and many of the features found in photocopiers used in offices are also beneficial to the arts.
The rise of photocopiers with lamination functionality, automatic collation and stapling, cloud-based job management, environmentally friendly and economic print modes and a wide number of other features has become an essential part of the workflow of many businesses.
This has helped minimise the need for bespoke print solutions outside of very specific print jobs, and the evolution of the photocopier will focus not only on increasingly detailed printouts but also on fulfilling the needs of every type of print job you are likely to have.