1. In his essay, “Is-De Skilling Killing Your Arts Education?” F. Scott Hayes claims that “skilled representational art is extremely effective in engaging the human heart and energizing the mind. Yet for decades a large percentage of our art institutions have sought to banish its practice from the classroom.” How might “The Ugly Internet Aesthetic” relate to trends of deskilling of art within contemporary art and artistic pedagogy? What is the relationship between formal or institutional artistic instruction and the ugly art of the internet?
Read all of Hayes’ piece here.
2. In the essay “What Screens Want” the author claims that computer screens are “aesthetically neutral” and that “A screen doesn’t care what it shows any more than a sheet of paper cares what’s printed on it.” How does “The Ugly Internet Aesthetic” relate to the discussion of flat versus skeuomorphic (realistically rendered) design presented in this article? Do the rage comics and memes mentioned in the article fit in either camp? Are they intentionally “designed” for the web?
3. How do the user interfaces of applications like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook influence and bias the way you see the world and who you present yourself to be? If these apps were designed differently or did not exist, how might those differences alter or shape your identity, both virtually and physically?