We are adding to culture in what we post or otherwise contribute albeit by way of nano increments. Sometimes those increments can be decisive and influential – out of all apparent proportion to their value. This is often apparent in the media world and previously in the publishing world. This may be because the artefact is an object of it’s time like Playboy magazine, the Atari computer or Star Trek.
To become a community artefact it requires certain properties:
Kofman on artifact
I understand this simple diagram from Kofman to explain those properties more or less as follows:
It must be part of an artificial system or the whole artificial system, it can be an objective tool or a social object or a conscious product and it requires acceptance as a cultural object.For me an objective tool of our time could be a Web 2.0 application like the ‘tool’ I am using now. A social object could be twitter. A conscious product could be a tweet.
What the definition doesn’t account for is any concept of duration. Is it an artifact simply because it is produced? I think not. I believe it requires some feeling of enduring community value. Perhaps that is what Kofman means by ‘cultural object’? Or is a cultural artefact value neutral; a pop hit song for example? Or does it have to have the status of ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles?
Aboriginal artefact - community interpreted
I think the ‘artifacts’ we are producing only become cultural artefacts when they are accepted and widely used or quoted. This would mean that Haraway’s manifesto, for the reasons given – oft cited etc., is a cultural artefact in the way that my blogging isn’t (yet)!
“I think the ‘artifacts’ we are producing only become cultural artefacts when they are accepted and widely used or quoted.”
Good point – is this why the great majority of digital content could be considered valueless? Because no one reads it?
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
I think the digital content which no-one reads has value for the writer but is probably cathartic in nature. It often acts as a safety valve but doesn’t have much to do with communal values, community or culture.
[...] for the reasons given – oft cited etc., is a cultural artifact” Arthur Hall blog: Culture, cultural artefacts and transition posted 16th [...]
Hi Arthur
Again, a good point about the cathartic nature of writing for ‘no man’. There must be some reason of we wouldn’t be doing it!
Just wanted to let you know that your blog (and tonight’s TV) have inspired a blog of my own…
http://digitalculture-ed.net/sarahp/2009/11/17/horizon-haraway-and-artifacts-of-knowledge/
Sarah
Hi Sarah, interested in your point, of course, please see blog as extension of your point at: http://digitalculture-ed.net/arthurh/
Hi Arthur
Another intersting post.
I think that’s about the size of it Sarah, it’s not only advertising folk who use jargon. I suspect that in academic circles especially there is a tendency to pack vocabulary and subject jargon so densely that it needs to be unpicked like a ball of tangled wool. There is then always the chance that something will be ‘discovered’ and with which you will be ‘credited’ which you never even thought of. I prefer the straightforward writing which Conrad and D. H. Lawrence both use in their different styles. I’m getting much more cynical as I get older…