For many, the concept of art using photocopy machines probably gets no more creative than making copies of a bare butt or middle finger and tacking such masterpieces to a friend's door.

But for Marc Levey and Jeanne Miller, a photographic abstracting technique involving color laser printers they call "Photo-Xerography" is finally yielding some satisfying, artistic results.

The process involves an original color slide distorted once by photographing it through a pane of textured glass and then distorted again by feeding the new slide through a color laser printer for a brand-new picture.

Some of the results are on display now through Feb. 25 in the HUB Browsing Gallery. The 31-piece exhibit of abstract pictures of people, objects and nature is called "Pimamento."

"Pimamento" refers to the age-old trick of painters painting right over their old paintings; similarly, photo-Xerography creates a whole new picture from an original slide, Levey said.

The original slides take on a totally new character, said Levey, who has been toying with abstracting techniques since 1973, when he published an article in Peterson's Photographic about a more primitive photo-abstracting technique.

The results are "halfway between realism and abstract impressionism," said Levey, a planning analyst at the office of the vice provost for educational equity.

The pictures resemble a strange combination of those computerized photos with the little squares you can have done at the mall, various blurry Monet paintings and hand-colored photography.

"You get this feeling that maybe a painter was involved," said Miller, who has been working with photography only four years and has been published in various journals and magazines. "It brings a whole new life to the photos."

Bringing these photos back to life begins with an original color slide projected onto a screen. The image is manipulated by placing a pane of textured glass -- the bumpy kind used on shower doors -- in front of it, then taking a picture of the new image. At this stage, the artists can control the extent of the image defraction by moving the pane, Levey said.

The new slide is then loaded into a color laser printer with the technology to print slides. This allows the artists to adjust the size, density and color of the image.

The colors can be vibrant and intense. The printers produce more sensational color than anything from the normal photographic process, Levey said.

And after all that, Levey and Miller have something totally original.

"You never know exactly what's going to happen," Miller said.

The process is long and largely trial and error, and only one out of every 40 or 50 attempts is a success, Levey said. With a backlog of some 400 transparencies waiting to be manipulated, distorted and abstracted, Levey and Miller have plenty more photocopying to do.

They are even looking into doing posters and greeting cards with photo-Xerography, but at this point, the work is "just beer money," said Levey, who bought several cases from the income from two photography books he has had published, most recently The 35mm Sourcebook.

For now, though, the duo will continue experimenting with the technique.

"We're making new things, but I wouldn't call it art yet," Levey said.