Last year, Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov — known by many as ::vtol:: — came up with a far less modern way of taking selfies. The Maker modified an old Brother SX-4000 typewriter to create portraits in the form of ASCII art.

The machine, called “i/o,” is controlled by an Arduino Mega and works by capturing an image using an iSight camera (with the help of a lamp for proper lighting), converting it into ASCII art using Pure Data and MAX/MSP, and then gradually printing it onto a piece of paper — one alphanumeric character at a time.