That an artifact is something made by a human being, a thing with archaeological or cultural interest, is not in question. To those of you already complaining that I am about to make a word mean nothing by making it mean everything, stay with me a bit longer. Artifacts of the mind live only as long as individuals can hold them, and like the objects found on a dig, can be left untouched, until one day they become a persuasive act, one which might or might not reach further than that single mind. However, I would argue that an artifact is first and foremost the fragile residue of memory crafted into a mental representation by an individual. An artifact is, in part, a product of the collective memory (Middleton & Edwards, 1990), or as Alan Radley ( 1990) conveys, an object that has been transformed for special purposes within the culture.
An artifact is more than the object that stubs our toes or the ancient document that tears at the edges it goes beyond the virtual bits we see but cannot touch. Were I to encounter that friend today, I would not only apply the term artifact to my data, I would take that claim further. He cautioned me against the use of that term. My colleague simply could not wrap his mind around the idea that an artifact's third dimension could be so narrow, its material so contemporary, and its value so seemingly insignificant. But our discussion did not get past my use of the term artifact.
A few years ago, in conversation with a friend in engineering, I mentioned that I had been collecting and analyzing artifacts – conference covers, magazine layouts, art history texts – anything that might help me understand how words, typography, and images collaborate on the page to make messages that could not be produced by text or image alone.
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