Every day we get closer to the event day, the more the pressure mounts. It's quite frustrating not actually having the post itself as we're waiting for the Joiners to finish making it. They are doing a great job, and we are in constant contact checking smaller points and details. We're also very grateful that they are aiming to meet the deadline which was very tight indeed. With every project I always try and set out to push on at the beginning of the project so that it doesn't come down to the wire at the end, but somehow that always happens. So now we have 2 full days left and the post is 80% completed. Tomorrow they hope to have it finished by the end of the day so we're planning a visit to the workshop to check it over in the afternoon. Then it will be delivered to us first thing on Friday morning so we can fit all the electronics, turf, icons, and test that everything is functioning properly. Then on Saturday morning we'll transport it to the site and it needs to be up and running by 11am. Think we can do it?

So today I went to TAP (who have secured another years lease on their building from the water company!) and to Chalkwell Park to make sure there were plant of flyers around and poster up. I also picked up the information plate from Sign Right (see picture) from around the corner. Not much else we can do now apart from press on with the application and budget for the larger project, which has to be submitted by the 1st October.

We've had another hectic few days, starting with obtaining our turf on Friday morning. Gary from Tuff Turf was working in our area and kindly came over to show us the offcuts he had available and check the size we needed, culminating in rolling out and cutting our turf on the roadside, giving us an inkling of what it looked like here when it was all fields...we now have the turf in the front room ready to add to the base next week. Our Thanks to Gary for his time and generosity.

Stuart also picked up the vinyl icons from the Sign Factory; these come in two parts, the coloured circle base and the white icon shape which goes on top, so we've been sticking these together carefully and have enough ready to use, with spares available in case of problems (such as air bubbles). As a spin off, it means the icon shapes are slightly raised on the surface, which gives them a slightly tactile quality, although possibly not enough to make them more accessible. Since we also heard from a contact at Disability Essex who is running a stall close by to Signpost at Village Green, we're hoping some of her visitors will help us find out! The information plate is being made by Signright, round the corner from us on West Road, so we've been pretty effective in using local firms, which saves on transport costs and also makes it easier to talk to someone about what you want, particularly important on a pilot project, where we're both learning as we go along. For example, the Signpost needs PAT testing as it is technically an 'electrical appliance', but we're able to call on Paul Malone's skills again for this. It's an important learning aspect for us in terms of our hopes to scale the project up, as any more permanent version will need rigorous testing to ensure it fulfills health and safety requirements. Right now though, our brains feel pretty full; less than a week to go and plenty to do.

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 seemed like an endless slog of getting nowhere in particular. there were lots of things we tackled, including the information plate and icons to go onto the post, which you can see below. A lot of the headache came with my ineptitude at using Illustrator, and even though I have the '..for Dummies' book, I couldn't find the correct settings in Live Trace to create a good sharp image when importing a photoshop image. Some of them worked ok, but some were still having difficulty with. I did better with the name plate as i was only using text and the ACE logo is helpfully provided in .ai format. I just loaded them up on here and they don't look so bad small...but we need to get a second opinion before they go to print.

On another note, the Metal website has been updated to include Signpost and we have also made a Facebook event, for those who use it.