The Project 

In this project we take the notion of the ‘relic’ as an approach to developing and experimenting in design.

Using the Relic as metaphor we are able to run a multidisciplinary project consisting of 4 Work Packages, in each of these we will take an Action Research-related approach, where we will “Plan – Do – Reflect”.We use the term ‘soul’, not because we aim to understand existence (I think that would be out the remit of this project), but because we wanted to emphasis the way that objects relate back to a lived experience. 
 

The deliberate relicing of guitars [1] is a practice used within the guitar industry, see [2] to read about the 'Untold Story of Fender's Relic Guitars' . What value does relicing add to products and what role might digital technologies play in this and in regard to other relics? The term ‘relic’ also relates to religious relics, and secular objects from the past, which have different meanings to a range of people, but how can we start to explore the ‘hybrid’ ways that we can bring together the digital and physical to design relics and what does this mean in today’s world. This project will explore a range of different approaches to develop new hybrid digital relics, from AI and robotics to 3D/4D printing. How can we bring the digital and physical together in a way that feels authentic,"real" and adds to/retains the aura of an object? See more about Relics (Guitars) here - video
 

Overview
WP1 - Musical Instruments as Hybrid Relics 
 

This Initially guitar-focused activities (Qualitative Research - interviews, tech development, workshops) – this starts by building a community of guitar stakeholders to explore the notion relicing, adding value – this will be interview based, and documented. Scans of instruments and wear patterns will be taken, these will form the basis for the development of a 3D twin, this will be provenanced to explore the notion of hybrid-provenance. We will explore:
a) how this information about the instrument can be added to the instrument, and versions of the instrument, digital and physical
b) can wear pattens be stored and replicated - how do the digital and physical elements of an object synchronise, does this impact upon our experience of such artefacts.
c) are there ways that this might be shared, for example with fans and other players; can parts of the guitar become relics in themselves, is there a difference between the whole and fragments of the object? Can we link the instrument to experience, sensed, personal, performed and archival? (Design workshop)

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Output - Open Access Journal Paper
Benford, S., McGarry, G., Hazzard, A., Chamberlain, A., Gibson, R., & Martinez Avila, J. P. (2024).

Augmenting musical instruments with digital identities.

Journal of New Music Research, 1–20.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2024.2423613

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WP2 - The Humanities as a Resource for Reflection and Design

This takes a different yet aligned response:
 

We will look at the analysis of texts, images and language and understand how the corpus relating to ‘authentic’ instruments relates back to their description as an artefact, exploring how this might be used to underpin hybrid descriptions of ‘things’ – authentic, digital, replicas, copies and how people experienced these in situ.
 

We will bring expertise to bear on the historical context of the relic, particularly framed by religious understandings of faith, and the interplay of belief, authenticity, theology and technology. We will carry out interviews and work with scholars to develop interdisciplinary understandings, which bring together archival research, history, technology and design. By doing this we aim towards developing an approach focusing on Digital Humanities scholarship as a resource for contemporary design. We would like to host a 2 day event to explore this and propose future research. We will look at the concepts such 'the word, and sound as relic', 'faith, belief and technology', 'authenticity and aura', 'mythology as design' and 'understanding responsible AI in the context of faith'.

(Archive-based, event, away days).

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See our blog post - Unravelling Layers of Meaning: Relics in Contemporary Discourse

Research - journal paper in submission 

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WP3 - Emergent Practice Led & Experimental Digital Humanities Approaches to Design (Design concepts, Performance Research, Practice Driven)

Key to designing an agile project is the ability to use and fold in emergent features and possibilities from the research..

We have purposefully planned this approach into the project. We are exploring the notion of Experimental Design in the Digital Humanities with Oxford, Aberystwyth and Swansea and want to encourage people to think outside of their discipline – as part of this we envisage two distinct activities that are about understanding AI & Robotics, in the context of the Humanities (possibly hosted at evoMUSART) and a workshop that looks at creating a ‘relic’-based design which may contain information about a space, place and time, this will be a small event at Oxford, which will then feed back into the designs relating back to music. We may also incorporate some experimentation with robots if applicable.

See our blog post - Hybrid Relics Project visits the University of Oxford: AI, Artefacts, Collections & Archives

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WP4 - Building a Community (workshops, visits, meetings)

We will feed in our findings, questions and insights into a series of events  to further develop and explore the design ideas, methods and approaches. It is envisaged that these will link directly to the research concerns spanning Design, Digital Humanities and intelligence and Hybridity. Were possible we would encourage Contract Researchers to take the opportunity to develop their career and establish visiting positions and network – We envisage that all will take part in these, and they will be curated by the team to develop impact in the area (Dr Chamberlain will also visit other people and places in the UK to feed into further research and funding applications). We will use the STAHR Collective to develop this area (linked to the Nottingham Researcher Academy). 

See some of our joint activities here these bring together different projects and people and are underpinned by our ongoing multidisciplinary (responsible) research collaborations. This project aligns with TAS RRI II & HoRRIzon III. Recently we have submitted a RAI UK impact proposal and it is envisaged that some of the interdisciplinary findings will feed into that project, thereby increasing the impact of the project. Dr Chamberlain is also working with the School of Law and is hoping to host a panel relating to design, law and ‘identity’. 

1. **have a look at Fender's Time Machine series, it's worth thinking about the text they use to discuss their range of guitars - https://www.fendercustomshop.com/series/time-machine/

2. The Untold Story of Fender's Relic Guitars - https://guitar.com/guides/essential-guide/relic-guitars-untold-story/

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