Culture of Media and Artifact

Except in the case of performance, the works of an artist take the form of media. These works are different ways for the artist to deliver on their artistic intent.

The idea of artifact as an enabler of culture can be illustrated very directly pointing to the great variety of musical instruments available to humankind. Musical instruments enable a musical culture of live performance and other enjoyments, like dancing. We can extend this same logic to different families of artifacts and reflect on the cultures they enable. You could consider, for example, things like roller skates and skateboards and appreciate the different cultural practices they enable. Roller skates are enjoyed in sophisticated rituals where people skate to disco music in oval-shaped rinks. A rich culture has developed from the use of skateboards in an urban settings, with reverberations into fashion and music. A similar observation can be made about other artifacts like guns and automobiles. The culture around guns ranges from shooting for sport or hunting to elaborate simulations of military fantasy, like paintball. The adoption of cars has also produced a panoply of cultural practices like street racing to more dignified forms like the Formula 1 global circuit.

Media culture is the culture that emanates from the adoption of a cultural artifact (technological, artistic, or otherwise). A conversation about culture from a media perspective shifts the focus directly to the objects and products of the cultural endeavor.