Diaphone. This is the type of foghorn (powered by compressed air) that Flat Holm has and links well to the idea of the transmission of messages.

The Bristol channel was rough on the way over, so good that I’m used to being ‘at sea’!

I got permission (as access is out of bounds at the moment) to film the inside of the foghorn station and its full of old machinery used to power the compressed air for the foghorn. Huge cyclinders, a multitude of dials and electronic equipment. The whole building is also very silent, aside from wildlife noises from outside (the recording of which are likely to form a remixed soundtrack), so I took quite a few sound recordings of the strange ambience. I think the results film may have a slightly unintentional disturbing tone, the foghorns perched on the building are at odds with the landscape and inside the complicated machinery feels deserted. I like the notion of the foghorns presence in that it is a tool for when vision is limited, so this might have a bearing on the way in which sound and images are used in the editing of the film.

I think the warden thought I was a bit unusual in wanting to focus on the foghorn station…people come to Flat Holm to see the bird life and unusual plant life.

I also visited Lavernock the point (Just outside Cardiff) opposite Flat Holm on the mainland where the wireless message was sent from, ironically I spoke to a local lady who said it was difficult near impossible to get a mobile phone signal in Lavernock!!.