While Stuart has been orienteering, I've been working on the code transcripts that will eventually become the captions that accompany our sound files. The aim is to create vector based text files that act as real time transcripts of the sounds (like subtitling on films), providing greater accessibility and sensory enhancement to the sounds; depending on how you can or like to access sounds, you'll able to hear them, feel them, see transcripts and any combination of those. Until the screens we've ordered have arrived, we can't test how the files will look within the final work, but by using vector based text, they should scale up without losing definition.

More interesting than the technical talk perhaps, is the challenge of creating a sound transcript. Being deaf myself, I'm intrigued by how much information is left out in captions. Sometimes that's necessary; there's only so much time you have to read a caption before the next one comes up, so when there is a lot of dialogue, the captions need to favour 'readability' rather than detail. But with many of our sound files, we can explore the description of a sound; does an air compressor on a train hum or drone? How do you describe the sound of a bucket blowing around an alley? How much is one person's perception of a sound and how does that influence the transcript? We'll begin posting a few example files shortly so we'll see if our approach works for other people.

Today was the first day that we've spent entirely on the project. Time is ticking by and we've still got a lot to do, but we're making progress. A lot of time has been taken up by trying to use seperate periperals and connect them together in a particular way that will do what we want. Obviously, its not that easy as we're trying to do something that is a bit different and we're trying to work out how things work, without having to buy them first. Going to see actual objects in shops is proving a pretty fruitless (and tedious)  experience but its the only way that I can get a good idea of how something will work and find out smaller details about each product that you can't see from a 100x100 pixel jpeg online.

Anyhow, I think we've sussed it all out now as we have some bits on order to arrive this week. Then we can fix them all together and see if it works. Will has also ordered our sample panel and so it shouldn't be long before we can test the overall set up. All we need now is some sound and visuals to play back, so as well as all this we've been transcribing the sounds from Colchester and testing out formats of .txt files, which Damien can elaborate on a bit more. But for now, here is a random sound clip to whet your appetite.

File Information:
Colchester_ryegateroad2.wav (Vibe Cube edit)
Colchester: Ryegate Road
00:24:00
(field recording)

(0-26 seconds)
distant water rushing over weir & ice cream van engine
(12-18 seconds)
squeak of break on bmx
(15-17 seconds)
three boys whizzing past on bmx's

Today we met with William Monte, with whom we worked on the Vibe Cube, to talk about the construction of the Signpost. We spoke at some length about materials, construction techniques, finishes, accessibility, power, security, vandalism and manufacturing, over tea and biscuits. He's now going to make some technical drawings based on our discussions and also get a sample piece of post made so we can test the NXT exciters to get the best results for 'feelsound'. More on this as we get the results.

I also updated this website to include some sounds and the map of Colchester, where the sounds originate...feel free to have listen.