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.

HCI is increasingly interested in amateurism, but the wider literature suggests that the amateur is a complex and distinctive phenomenon. An interview study reveals the nature of the amateur in the digital age. Even though operating non-professionally at a micro-scale, amateur musicians employ a plethora of online services to sustain local fanbases, reach out to new fans, collaborate internationally, and actively promote both digital and material products. Our findings lead to recommendations for event-oriented promotion tools; community-oriented analytics; tangible and embedded products; and limited-edition digital experiences. We conclude that HCI needs to recognise the amateur as an important class of user, one who is serious about their leisure, and who is also distinct from the professional as from the novice and hobbyist.