1. How do you classify your artifact? In what groups can you place your artifact? What connections can you make to other artifacts in the group?
My chosen artifact is facial hair. My artifact is essentially a physical badge or statement about one’s self. Facial hair falls under the category fashion, with badges like makeup, clothes, nails and tattoos. These badges have meaning, both to us and those around us. They classify us into different kinds of people who belong to different groups or cliques.
2. Identify points of similarity between your artifact and others. Then identify points of difference with other artifacts. How is it similar? How is it different?
Facial Hair is a lot like makeup. Facial hair is a badge that men grow and groom to display attractiveness and masculinity. Makeup is similarly worn by women to display beauty and femininity. Both act as badges within groups to attract mates, impress others and to show off our best features. Both say a lot about a person. A man with a groomed beard might be taken for a hipster. If he had a long unkempt beard, that might signal to others that the man was either homeless or he lives in the woods. A woman who wears a lot of makeup can be perceived in just as many ways. Examples of these are attention-seeking, beautiful, slutty and so on.
They differ in on blatantly obvious way. Men grow beards, women do not. Women wear makeup, men do not. But steadily this is changing. Men around the world have been wearing makeup for all of their lives, not feeling comfortable with their assigned gender. Women are letting their eyebrows grow out instead of plucking them or they might stop waxing the hair on their lips. Their is still a lot of backlash in communities for people who defy the norms, but its slowly changing. Either way, these badges serve as statements to everyone about who we are with or without them.
Another large difference with makeup is that it’s easy to put on and easier to take off. Facial hair is more of a commitment. If you shave your mustache, that’s it. It’s gone. Make up can be reapplied.
3. What metaphors or analogies suit your artifact?
A lot of people are seeing facial hair as a form of art now. A landscape to be groomed and trimmed like a fine lawn of grass. A hedge to be shaped into beautiful shapes. Others see it as a weed in society. A form of self expression that needs to be killed with pesticide. Oddly, it also works as an aphrodisiac for others. It brings passion and desire. For others it takes this desire away, a strong turn off.
5. How is your artifact characterized? (How do people/media/groups characterize it?)
In television and movies, facial hair is used to tell many stories. Depending on how the hair is groomed it can take on the form of a homeless man, a degenerate, an addict, an attractive groom, a strong lumberjack, the captain of a ship, and a narcissistic hipster. It all depends on what you’re watching. This artifact affects almost every narrative in a different way. The dynamic is complex and confusing, yet simple at its core. It’s simply a badge known as a fashion. Some have and some don’t. People make assumptions about you whether you have it or you don’t.
6. What cultural narratives govern your artifact?
Masculinity vs Femininity. Rich vs Poor. Fashionable vs Unfashionable. Conservative vs Liberal.
7. What assumptions, stereotypes, habits, social practices, and institutions frame your artifact?
In one stereotype you have a poor man, struggling to feed a family and make ends meet. In another narrative you have a weightlifter; the strongest man in the world. Or even a hippie who preaches love and peace. Some might even see a Mormon. It’s such a huge icon, you have stores selling fake mustaches and beards to kids. People who can’t grow facial hair are sold chemicals to solve their problems. Merchandise on the market is targeted solely for people who want to get rid of facial hair. People chastise others for not being able to grow facial hair all the time.
8. What doctrines or practices affect your artifact? (Or, what doctrines or practices you’re your artifact affect?) Political parties and platforms? Religious? Ideological? Which ones? Are there cultural “rules” and practices? Which?
Some religions practice growing beards, like Mormonism and Orthodox Judaism. Some companies and businesses bar employees from having facial hair. The military also has regulations on facial hair. It has to be trimmed and constantly maintained or cut off. Restaurants don’t want their cooks to have facial hair so it doesn’t get in the food. Bars and cafe’s might hire people with beards to maintain an edgy look. Some conservative crowds frown upon facial hair, while others in the conservative crowd maintain well-groomed mustaches and beards. Some facial hair trends have been banned, like the toothbrush mustache due to Hitler.
9. How does your artifact affect culture? How does culture affect your artifact?
Facial hair trends have evolved through the ages. Sometimes trends catch on and next thing you know, everyone is sporting a chinstrap beard. Likewise, people use new styles to make statements. Sometimes these statements catch on and people find it desirable. These new trends then create culture as a result.