Eighth graders, Jack Briggs and Liam Patty recently approached their art teacher Haley Wulfman to make a case. The two asserted that coding is art, and therefore, they should be able to use time during art class to code. Wulfman said "Prove it." She challenged the boys to write a persuasive argument. What follows is that piece:

 

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Why Coding is Art by Jack Briggs '21 and Liam Patty '21 

"The internet is like a blank canvas, just waiting to be painted." -Anonymous

Coding is a form of art for many reasons. Coding has many benefits to the brain, as well as giving an area for people to create and design artwork as a website or program. People can look at a website, and just like art, can see many things that the creator has done well, as well as things that have not been done to satisfaction. People take courses, and some teach themselves, as both coding and art needs time and knowledge to perfect. Art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.” Another reason why coding is art is because it applies imagination; how it does this is you decide to design your website or game you are coding. We are coding a website which requires imagination and creativity to design it. Art helps you because it teaches you to look closely at things, because one small error, could make the whole artwork look different. This is the same with coding because if you have even small error, the code will not run correctly. Over the ages, many forms of art have been introduced. This is the modern age, and now coding is being introduced as the latest form of art.

 

The internet is art because it was blank until people began to use it and add sites, therefore making it a collaborativeart piece for coders and people all over the world. Craigslist is art because it is part of the internet, and contributes to the overall art piece, which is the internet. Another reason why Craigslist is art is because if you think of it as an art piece, it has photos, text, titles, and white space on it, which all contribute to the overall piece.

 

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Liam Patty '21

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Jack Briggs '21

 

Update from Ms. Wulfman:

I love when students push against traditional definitions of the visual arts. When they enter the constantly evolving—andoften uncomfortable—territory of defining visual arts for themselves, I know they’re thinking critically about the discipline. 

The boys have begun a series of code-based artworks (see sample above), which is quite exciting because through the process of making them, they’re actively investigating the question of what constitutes a code-based art piece, and how they define it.



 

 

 

 

 

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