The bridge

While keeping my eyes open every day for interaction opportunities in the streets of Norwich, some first ideas started to come up.

Most of the days when I need to go to the centre from my house, I pass over the bridge that is located above the A147 Road.

There I see almost every day a man that sits in a corner and draws with colored pens on found cardboard pieces. He has a plastic cup and prompts people to give him change. He probably is not homeless but he spends most of his time there, on that particular spot. Sometimes you can see that he left a note that reads "Be right back". He uses a dirty mattress to sit on and when the weather was colder he would cover himself with some old and weary blankets. Quite often though you can see him bent down and you cannot tell if he is sleeping, if he took any drugs or if he is just too tired to even keep his head up.

I pass by this bridge almost every day. We have never talked to each other and I have definitely never given him any money.

I do not know what most of the people that pass over the bridge think of him. I have seen some people throwing change in his little cup. However, most of the people are just too busy to even pay attention to his existence or they just do not want to admit that he is there.

People also use the bridge to cross the busy A147 when they have bikes or babies on trolleys.
On both sides of the bridge you can see signs that call cyclists to dismount:

What is interesting here is that this is how street signs work. Street signs are in specific points of the street so that they can inform people on what to expect on their way, to prepare people for an upcoming danger, to make people act in an organized way so that chaos or accidents are avoided.

If I enjoyed some course more than others during my BA on Civil Engineering , that would be "Systems of Regulation". It is very interesting to see how masses of people obey signs in the streets. It would be also very interesting to see what happens when people disobey the rules and signs in the streets.

What would happen if people were informed by a sign about the guy on the bridge that sits in his corner all day and makes fractal designs on used cereal boxes?

What kind of message should such a sign communicate?

Should the sign be put in favor of that person or against?

Should the two entrances to the bridge bear the same sign or two opposite messages?

Will passers by obey the signs that I will create mimic the visual code of the official signs that the authorities put in the streets?