Cultural values as policy directives: techniques, technologies and symbolic work

Cultural policies aim to respond to the widespread use of digital technologies in cultural practices by facilitating their application and addressing associated challenges. In arguing that policy positions emerge through the interface of digital technologies and culture and that they need to be negotiated in practice, this paper discusses how digital technologies are perceived and negotiated in traditional cultures of making. The immersive nature of cultural values is made explicit through symbolic work that embeds the digital as documentation of the life cycle of hand-woven materials. Applying the framework of cultural techniques, digital technologies are perceived as products of culture. They signify the interwoven complexities of values between people, cultural practice and materials recognising cultures of making as policy directives.