Ok, firstly today we'd like to say that we've been getting some comments and having some discussions with a few of you by email. We really value your input and it helps us to shape our thinking about the project and our work in general. But we feel that by emailing us personally that others may miss out on the dialogue that is happening, so we invite you to use the comments function on each blog post which you can find at the top right above each post. Alternatively you can use the forum, which as yet only has a test post on it.

Today was a continuation of yesterday in the fact that it was pretty flat out. We got a phone call from Urban Print to say that our flyers and posters were ready to collect. I then phoned Tuff Turf to talk to them about getting some turf to cover the base of the post. Since we are only covering a small area, and he usually does whole gardens, we can probably get some offcuts which will save us some cash. He's a local guy too so we should be able to sort that out this week.

So we cycled down to Urban Print and picked up the Fyers on our bikes. Damien put them in her pannier and since they were a big heavy (2000 x A6) it made it a bit difficult for her to take left hand corners, but she made it home ok. Not bad for a girl with no balance (I don't know how she stays on two wheels, even unladen!). So we split the box and I took half of the to Sean at Metal. They will be promoting Village Green with BBC Blast in Southend High Street on Saturday so will hand out our flyers at the same time :o) (we planned that!). After a deluge of rain I carried on to The Sign Factory on London Road in Leigh to speak to Louise, who did our vinyl graphics for the Vibe Cube. We went through the designs for the icons (see earlier blog post) and will pop back tomorrow to pick them up. I then headed home to tidy up the front room, as for over 3 weeks its been full of Signpost stuff strewn about, so tidied up everything, vacuumed, dusted and made somewhere to sit down. But not yet, more work to be done....

The last few days have been super hectic, and by the end of the day my eyes have been sore from too much time spent staring at screens. We've been testing and checking our renders of the sounds and subtitles for each recording, and then each route, and then everything as whole. But we've now got a finished version and can concentrate more on the other things that need doing...of which there are many.

This morning I went to Pure Joinery in Billericay (formerly Carters Joinery in Shoeburyness) who built the Vibe Cube, to talk through the plans and how they are going to build the Signpost. I was kindly picked up from the station by Jim, who will be making the final working drawing from which it will be made. He, Neil and I talked through each of the pieces that were to be installed in the work and how they might be fitted. After quite a while they decided that the way we had intended for the post to be constructed wasn't going to work so we started from scratch. After some discussion they decided on another way we it could be made without impacting on the overall appearance of it, which mainly came about from a big change in the internal design. but this should make it more rigid and enable an access panel to be incorporated into it allowing us easier aces to the contents and workings inside. It is a tight turn around though as there is less than two weeks to go...ouch!!

On the way back from the meeting I did some thinking about the whole process and how little we knew about building things, the function of materials and how they can be used, their properties and adaptability. But that is what doing a 'pilot' project is all about, learning and experimenting, discovering and solving problems, developing relationships and treading new ground. So even thought I'm feeling a bit out of depth at the moment, I'm a pretty good swimmer and should see us resting contentedly on a nice warm beach in a few weeks. Metaphorically of course, as we won't actually be sunning it on a beach until October when we'll be taking this years holiday...a few days in Norfolk.

Ok, on another note we also sent off the Flyers and posters to be printed at Urban Print in Southend and will be abel to pick those up on Thursday.

The text that appears on the plate and the flyer isn't so easy to read from our pictures, so I'm going to include it here in the blog...

Signpost

is a sonic and tactile installation by Southend based artists Stuart Bowditch and Damien Robinson.
It plays back sound journeys taken through the town of Colchester, put together from recordings donated by the public, sourced from the Essex Sound Archive and made by the artists themselves.

As well as spanning the entire town, Signpost also features archival recordings dating as far back as 1906, meaning that you can travel through the town simultaneously in place and in time.

You can experience the work in several ways:

Listen (privately) - insert your personal headphones in the jack sockets
Listen (publicly) - to the sounds played back through the post speakers
Look - read the information about the recordings on the screens
Touch - touch the posts 'feelsound'  panel to experience the way the sounds resonate

or any combination of the above.

The Signpost is a pilot for a larger scale project that intends to place similar signposts at different locations around the country, each pointing to the next and playing new sound recordings of each area.

Stuart and Damien value your input so if you have any comments or suggestions then please visit
the project website  www.signpostproject.co.uk

Today my Work Pace app has a rather angry red face as it's trying to tell me that I've gone over the amount of hours worked today, in fact it's done that most days that we've been working on this project that has involved computing. Nothing that remarkable there though. I thought about reprogramming Work Pace to be more lenient but that won't help as I really need to keep an eye on my computer usage and try and keep arm and hand pains down to a minimum.

Anyhow, today we've been working on the poster and flyer. We need to have them printed by the 18th so that we can piggyback on the Village Green promotions. At the moment the only difference between the poster and the front of the flyer is the funders and supporters logos, which will appear on the back of the flyer. We've tried to keep it simple and friendly, and to use shapes that people might be familiar with. Also keeping the Signpost white keeps a little bit of intrigue as to the what the actualy Signpost will be like. It also helps as the actual object isn't built yet and don't have any images to use.

At the moment the back needs more work as there is too much text and it's not very readable so needs to be in a larger font. But more work on that tomorrow. Below are images of the Flyer front, flyer back, and poster.

Today I also rang Neil at Carters Joinery, who will be making the post and he said that he has received the plans from William, and will start on our drawing in the morning. I also got a message from Paul Malone to say that the headphone electronics will be ready Monday, so that should be just in time for constructing the post...exciting.