08/26/2026
When IBM launched its first PC in 1981, it licensed Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” character for its advertising campaign. This was a moment when computers, which used to fill a room, had become small enough to integrate into everyday domestic life. Charlie Chaplin, a cultural icon associated with navigating the modern industrial world, became IBM’s strategy for humanizing the computer and making it seem less threatening.
These ads also consistently included a rose: usually a single-stemmed rose, sometimes two or three flowers, sitting in a small bud vase next to a computer. According to Camila Galez’s research, Tom Mabley, the creative director of the ad campaign, mentioned that it was added simply for color and as a symbol of creativity.
Galaz also tracked down the actor, Billy Scudder, who played Charlie in these ads. When she asked him about the rose, he said, “Well, it was the innocence and the purity of the Red Rose. It was the symbol that was always there in the little dish next to the computer. And when they took that out of the scene, I went, ’Uh oh. Not innocent anymore.’ And I insisted that they put it back.”
For her exhibition, Diskette//Rosette, Galaz meticulously painted the roses from the campaign to explore the function they played, highlighting how corporate advertising mobilized romance, gendered symbolism, and nostalgia to shape public trust in emerging technologies.
Camila Galaz
The Andy Warhol Foundation
