I was thinking about skeuomorphs in my disciplines, and was immediately drawn to one in particular. We often use the concept of “scaffolding” in composition & rhetoric (and some of you may be familiar with it from WAC–Writing across the Curriculum, and from pedagogy in your own disciplines). This idea of support for writing (and learning more generally) is taken from the physical scaffolding on a building. Here is a discussion of scaffolding in writing from Rob Oliver’s blog (I just came across it, but this discussion seems to be good).

As someone also deeply immersed/invested in utopian studies, I couldn’t help thinking, when reading the Gessler, of skeuomorphs in terms of the utopian impulse or thinking, in terms of possibilities, alternatives. There is often a discussion in utopian studies about whether there needs to be a radical (apocalyptic) break [which is clearly very difficult to achieve: as Gessler reminds us, “Consistency with one’s preconceptions and expectations are powerful forces acting to bolster one’s ideas” (230) … So where does the (truly) “new” emerge?], or whether small, incremental change is the way to go. Skeuomorphs, with their traces of the “other” (original objects, functions), are grounded in the past but point toward the future, towards new options, the “space of possibilities” and the “different constraints and possibilities” of different media/words (Gessler 232). As Gessler states: “They help us map the new onto an existing cognitive structure, and in doing so, give us a starting point from which we may evolve additional alternative solutions” (230). I’m not really sure what to make of all of this yet, but just wanted to throw it out there as something I’m working through in conjunction with this week’s readings/ideas …

On a side note: I’m reading Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things right now, and that text/those ideas really resonate with the idea of the skeuomorph.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon for our next seminar!