Accountable Artefacts

Abstract

We explore how physical artefacts can be connected to digital records of where they have been, who they have encountered and what has happened to them, and how this can enhance their meaning and utility. We describe how a travelling technology probe in the form of an augmented acoustic guitar engaged users in a design conversation as it visited homes, studios, gigs, workshops and lessons, and how this revealed the diversity and utility of its digital record. We describe how this record was captured and flexibly mapped to the physical guitar and proxy artefacts. We contribute a conceptual framework for accountable artefacts that articulates how multiple and complex mappings between physical artefacts and their digital records may be created, appropriated, shared and interrogated to deliver accounts of provenance and use as well as methodological reflections on technology probes.

Encumbered Interaction

“…All of these examples focus on the performed sound of the instrument. A contrasting approach can be found in [3] where the decorative inlay on the body of a guitar is harnessed as scannable image recognition markers that link to an online record of the instrument's history of engagement. Turchet et al highlight that the field of music has yet to witness the same degree of IoT investigation as other domains, proposing a future internet of musical things (IoMusT) [38].…”

“…A specific instance of using things as context is to associate resources with the guitar itself. The instrument can be thought of as -or actually made into -a physical anchor for digital hyperlinks [3], and the presence of the instrument then facilitates their recall (and creation). For example, Stuart in Kit's band or Anthony in Janice's band might have "attached" the chord sheets they needed during the rehearsal to their respective guitar, facilitating access to them in the rehearsal.…”

“…For example, the guitar that is "normally" used might have a broken string, or have been lent to someone else, or be too heavy to bring today, and therefore another guitar is used in its place. So it may be important to provide other routes to resources or ways to "correct" the system's interpretation of context, e.g., coded guitar picks provided another route to some of the Carolan guitar's resources [3].…”

Exploring Machine Autonomy and Provenance Data in Coffee Consumption

“…This work and others [17,27] suggests that provenance is given consideration when assessing the value of a product. Efforts have been made in HCI to explore the value of augmenting objects with information regarding their provenance, for example, by tagging physical objects with digital data regarding the object's history [3], [10], revealing previous ownership of second hand goods [1], and presenting the lifecycle of products to consumers [2], and these have also found this of value to participants.…”

The Design of Future Music Technologies

“…We anticipate a wide variety of such accounts, from those concerned with conventional IoT issues such as logistics, to practical guidance over usage and maintenance, to formally tracing provenance, to telling personal 'tales' of ownership." [9], also see [10] [11] for more pattern-based interaction with the Carolan guitar.…”