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The mp3 lies at the center of important debates around intellectual property and file-sharing, but it is also a cultural artifact in its own right. This article examines the design of the mp3 from both industrial and psychoacoustic perspectives to explain better why mp3s are so easy to exchange and the auditory dimensions of that process of exchange. As a container technology for recorded sound, the mp3 shows that the quality of 'portability' is central to the history of auditory representation. As a psychoacoustic technology that literally plays its listeners, the mp3 shows that digital audio culture works according to logics somewhat distinct from digital visual culture.

The authors consider symbolic interactionism to be a suitable theoretical framework to analyze projects in creative sectors because it affords ample space for individual and collective creativity. Furthermore, teams working on different cultural artifacts establish a negotiated order (interactionist term coined by A. L. Strauss) among artists, managers, the audience, and sponsors, et cetera, by discussing and translating various meanings and perspectives. This is especially noticeable when projects are managed using an agile methodology. The application of agile methodologies in creative sectors is a relatively new idea, although it seems to be in harmony with the nature of artistic work. For instance, it implies the acceptance of unpredictability and flexibility while also recognizing the ability and individuality of project participants. There are also specific problems related to the personalities of the artists and the irregularities and discontinuities inherent in the process of creation. The first part of the article raises the topic of creativity in symbolic interactionism. This perspective is subsequently extended to teamwork in creative sectors employing the description of collective work in Howard Becker's book entitled Art Worlds as an example. The authors reflect on other contemporary works explaining the cultural shift transpiring during the move from the analog age to the current digital age and its influence on the process of creation in the world of artists. This leads to a discussion of distributed agility, a concept stemming from agile management. The various agile methods are mentioned and shortly characterized; we also present a succinct depiction of historical perspective. The literature on the use of agile methods in creative sectors is referred to along with some of the challenges they face. The need to develop an agile management methodology specifically for creative industries is emphasized. This article utilizes the literature on symbolic interactionism to explain group dynamics by drawing analogies with agile management.

This thesis discusses the value and meanings of cultural artifacts from the Akan material culture known as gold weight. Before colonial contact, the gold weights were essential objects in the everyday lives of the Ashanti, also known as the Akan people of Ghana, West Africa. The weights were called abrammuo in the Akan language, made of brass alloy mounted with geometrical motifs and figurative symbols. The abrammuo, as a set of miniature weights, were kept in the futuo, a leather bag that also contains additional apparatus such as brass spoons, scales, brushes, feathers, gold pans, etc. According to Garrard (1980), "as long as gold dust remained a currency in Akan society, gold weights has been significant for weighing gold at the market or during social, and political arrangements such as birth, rites of passage, deaths, and funerals, during marriage or for state fines and toll purposes" (Garrard 1980,171-176). In other contexts, the gold weights played the role of an agent of social, economic and political stability among the Akan and within the gold trade system network. With the fall of the Ashanti kingdom to British colonialism, a significant number of weights lost their primary functions and found their way into a net of western art collectors, private art galleries, and museum collections. I argue that the value (s) embedded in the weights in traditional Ashanti culture were traded for a western canon of artistic and aesthetic values. My inquiry focuses on the changing meaning and significance of the gold weights through western museum representation and exhibition.Keywords: colonialism, materialism, cultural artifacts, material culture, Akan, gold trade, gold weights and value theory, museum studies

This article demonstrates how a cultural reading of consumption that focuses on the meaning and materiality of domestic indoor microclimates can contribute to conceptual developments in the field of practice theory that refocus attention on cultural patterns, including prevailing norms and prescriptions regarding indoor temperature and thermal comfort. Drawing on evidence collected during a research-led change initiative that encouraged people to reduce energy use in the home by lowering indoor temperature to 18°C, we deploy the heuristic device of "indoor microclimate as artifact" to show how the manifestation of this new artifact initiated significant changes in everyday practices that revolve around heating. We observe that these changes may also spill over into the public sphere – from home to workplace. By making the microclimate a tangible and visible thing, we describe how people appropriate and appreciate this new object of consumption, what it says about different bodies in diverse and bounded spaces, and what the artifact as a commodity reveals about broader systems of heating and energy provision, and associated actors. Due to the increasing spread of central heating and the growing importance of complex technological devices to monitor and control indoor temperature, heating is no longer a practice in and of itself for many urban dwellers in Europe. However, when people appropriate the indoor microclimate, new heating-related practices emerge that can lead to energy sufficiency. We thus argue that by deliberately "materializing" domestic indoor microclimate as part of a change initiative, more sustainable forms of energy use can be made to matter.

History involves the study of people and the times and places in which they lived. Traditional instruction often is dominated by an emphasis on decontextualized facts, dates, and events. Too often, the study of history becomes lifeless and monotonous because it artificially separates people from the larger context of times and places in which they lived. Teachers can build meaningful contexts in which students experience history by using cultural artifacts as springboards into the study of people who lived in the past. Integrating the use of cultural artifacts, such as photographs, films, and music, allows teachers to create new entry points, new ways for students to connect to, and take ownership of, their learning. This article presents a rationale for including cultural artifacts in the study of history, which can promote a better understanding of the nature of history, personalize history, encourage student inquiry, and endorse the notion that history represents multiple perspectives. Cultural artifacts can be used to enrich instruction of any historical period, at any grade level. In this article, we provide examples of artifacts that can be used in a study of the Dust Bowl for the upper elementary and middle grades.

Preservation of cultural heritage is a complex task regarded from legislative, professional and sociocultural aspects. It demands a very delicate approach. At the same time, the heritage preservation system in the Russian Federation has a number of problems related to imperfection of the institution of historical and cultural expertise, which allows removing obvious cultural resources from the field of state protection. The civil society can resist such incidents, as evidenced by the case of the Irkutsk architectural and historic monument, Doctor Rassushin's House (early 20th century). ; Сохранение культурного наследие является комплексной задачей, рассматриваемой в законодательном, профессиональном, социокультурном аспектах. Она требует особо бережного подхода. При этом система охраны наследия в Российской Федерации имеет ряд проблем, связанных с несовершенством института историко-культурной экспертизы, позволяющим выводить очевидные культурные объекты из поля государственной защиты. Гражданское общество способно противостоять подобным инцидентам, что явственно показала ситуация, связанная с иркутским архитектурно-историческим памятником – домом врача А. Рассушина (нач. ХХ в.).