The Carolan Guitar project is hosted at the University of Nottingham‘s Mixed Reality Laboratory. Housed on the Jubilee Campus, previously the site of Raleigh Bicycles, the MRL is a technology research lab dedicated to exploring new ways of interacting with computers. Our research focuses on the boundaries between the physical and the digital – hence the name mixed reality – and we have a particular interest in cultural and creative applications of computers, including music.

We have brought together a highly interdisciplinary team to deliver this project:

• Steve Benford is Professor of Collaborative Computing and also a keen amateur guitarist. He is responsible for the overall project concept.
• Nick Perez is a luthier and also a teacher at the Newark School of Instrument Crafts. He is building our guitar. Unsurprisingly he is also a guitarist.
• Liz Jeal is a freelance graphic designer and teacher. She is creating our decorative patterns. Liz plays guitar.
• Adrian Hazzard is a PhD student in the MRL who’s doctoral work focuses on adaptive musical soundtracks for mobile experiences. He is integrating the designs onto the guitar. Adrian also enjoys playing guitar.
• Liming Xu is also a PhD student in the MRL who is responsible for development of the software app that will be used to capture and deliver information about the guitar. Clearly, Liming is going to need to learn to play the guitar at some point soon.

The project is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through Steve Benford’s Dream Fellowship award (grant reference EP/J005215/1), through the Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training (EP/G037574/1) and through the Fusing Semantic and Audio Technologies (FAST) project (EP/L019901/1). We are very grateful to EPSRC for their support. They are welcome to play their guitar when it is ready.

We would also like to especially thank Dominic Morrow, Toby Jackson, Rob Miles and the team at Nottinghack for their very generous help and use of facilities.