I have just been watching ‘Horizon – How long is a piece of string?’ on BBC2. The concept of the programme was simply to explain quantum mechanics to the layman; a tall order! However, using the construct of an ordinary man in the shape of Alan Davies to act as our representative interrogating the experts, it allowed the possessors of the knowledge to pass it down in manageable chunks to me as the viewer. Now I have read a little about quantum theory and the notion of Schrödinger’s cat, but I have never seen it so beautifully explained!
This reminded me of a comment that I read yesterday in Arthur Hall’s blog referencing digital artifacts:
“I think the ‘artifacts’ we are producing only become cultural artifacts 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 artifact” Arthur Hall blog: Culture, cultural artefacts and transition posted 16th November.
So here we have what I am sure will become a cultural artifact under Arther’s definition, because it would have been widely viewed and widely commented on in the future. So it is an artifact of culture, and more so an artifact of knowledge because it performs the function of imparting knowledge into a wider audience. This has also brought into sharp focus my experience this past week with the work of Haraway. Haraway is undeniably a cultural artifact in the sense of being widely accepted and quoted. But is it also a knowledge artifact? I would say that a piece of academic writing could not be described as a knowledge artifact if the knowledge that it contains has to be ‘deciphered’ by other academics before it can be fully understood and more widely consumed by knowledge ’seekers’. If the work can only be understood by a few, it surely does not have the wider appeal to define it as an artifact of knowledge. The academics who ‘translate’ the work of Haraway do not necessarily carry the same kudos as the name of Haraway, but their work does more to foster the knowledge of what Haraway is trying to impart. In my opinion, they have more right to the truer description of ‘producers of artifacts of knowledge’ than the work of Haraway.
