The garden has been a frequent subject in the work of painters, sculptors, writers, composers, and other artists seeking to represent or evoke the variety of physical, emotional, and intellectual experiences it provides. It is also one of the most ancient and universal of art forms in it own right.
With the advent of personal computers and the Web, the virtual garden is becoming an established feature in the cultural landscape. A virtually real garden resembles an objectively real garden in enough ways to justify meaningful comparisons between the two. However, as an artificial environment, the virtual garden is experienced primarily through visual and auditory stimuli generated interactively through the use of a computer or computer network.
In its simplest form, a virtual garden may consist of no more than a single visual image or series of images of an actual or imaginary place. A JPEG or GIF that an amateur landscape photographer displays on a web page or uses as a screensaver is enough to qualify. More complex virtual gardens may be realized in the form of slide shows, animations, virtual tours, QuickTime Virtual Reality panoramas, and digital videos. The number and variety of software and hardware options for the creation and enjoyment of virtual gardens will doubtless continue to proliferate, although the difference in technological sophistication between the gardens computer users can now design for themselves online and the voice-activated hyperrealistic landscape simulations on a starship holodeck will likely be measured in centuries.
Today's virtual gardens cannot directly stimulate the senses of touch, smell, and taste. They do, however, compensate by presenting their creators with the opportunity to produce work that is subject to almost none of the physical, technical, financial, legal, and other limitations that apply to the design, construction, and maintenance of objectively real projects.
One of the greatest opportunities enjoyed by virtual garden designers is the unprecedented control they have been given over sound. There is no denying that sound is one of the most important experiential elements of any landscape, but it is often disregarded or dealt with by many architectural professionals only when it poses a specific "noise" problem. Although greater attention has been paid to soundscape design and quality in recent years, the educational background of most architects and engineers rarely prepares them to approach these important matters from an aesthetically informed perspective.
The term "soundscape" is relatively new and still somewhat ambiguous. It can be used to describe the characteristic audible content of a given landscape during a given period of time, with the understanding that "landscape" can be defined at various physical and chronological scales. Thus it is possible to speak of the "soundscape" of a particular garden, which may include everything from the rustling of leaves, the plashing of a fountain, and the chirping or birds to the background noise of passing traffic and the voices of children in an adjacent playground.
If a garden's soundscape is of primary design significance, it can be designated a "sound garden." If the soundscape of such a garden is essentially musical, the term "music garden" seems particularly appropriate. Soundscapes, sound gardens, and music gardens all have their equivalents in virtual reality.
Of course, virtual reality and objective reality are no more mutually exclusive than subjective and objective reality. In 2006 architect Mark Shepard (SUNY, Buffalo) developed a Tactical Sound Garden Toolkit for Conflux 2006, described as an "open-source software platform for cultivating virtual 'sound gardens' in contemporary cities." It is more accurate to describe these as virtual "soundscapes," since Shepard's approach makes use of wireless technology (i.e., WiFi-enabled mobile devices such as laptops, iPods, mobile phones, and headphones) to produce, transmit, and monitor site-specific auditory content within the confines of certain "hot zones" in actual urban environments. Full participation in the creation, modification, and audition of this content is limited to members of the public with access to the appropriate digital technology. While they do incorporate some musical content, the TSG soundscapes were not expressly conceived as virtual music gardens.
The terms "music garden" and "virtual music garden" require further clarification. Any "music garden" clearly has some connection with music, but that connection is not necessarily audible. The "music garden" at Villandry (sixteenth century), for example, has been so named for English-speaking visitors because its parterres incorporate lyres, harps, and other symbolic allusions to the art of sound. The landmark Music Garden at Toronto "interprets in nature Bach's First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, with each dance movement within the suite corresponding to a different section in the garden." However, it features a music pavilion designed by an architectural blacksmith, so here music is heard as well as expressed symbolically through physical design.
It is impossible to say when and where the first "music garden" came into being, since music and gardens have enjoyed a long, intimate history that stretches back past Classical antiquity. But in recent years music gardens both small and large have sprouted up around the world. Although that in Toronto is by far the best known on account of its historical links to celebrity cellist Yo-Yo Ma, others have appeared or are in progress in places as diverse as Nimbin (Australia); Shizuoka (Japan); Majorca (Spain); and Canterbury (UK); and in the American cities of Austin, Chicago, Clarks Grove (Minnesota), Greensboro (North Carolina), and Middletown (Connecticut).
Although virtual gardens and virtual sound gardens as described above have existed almost as long as virtual reality itself, Nu Mu [sic!] Unlimited Festival 2007 can claim the distinction of having brought the first "virtual music garden" to the Web. When "virtual music garden" was googled on 7 October 2007 at 3:31 p.m., no other links were returned except those for the Nu Mu[sic!] Unlimited 2007 index and FAQ pages.
The Festival 2007 Garden is unique in other ways as well. It is not merely a virtual landscape enhanced by the addition of music but a multimedia artistic creation in which music and art were both essential to the design process and collectively constitute the very fabric of the garden. Each part of the Festival 2007 Garden was composed as a musical work in its own right, and each composer chose and in many cases created some part of the visual experience accompanying his work. Joseph Dillon Ford (Gainesville, Florida), formally trained both as a musician and landscape architect, was responsible for the overall concept and design, but he worked in close collaboration with all of the other participants, who, by 31 October 2007, represented five countries on four continents:
All of the above usually write tonal or microtonal music, but for this project, officially unveiled on Halloween (31 October), most chose to work "under a mask" as non-tonal composers. (Non-tonal composers were invited to participate as tonal composers, but none thus far has accepted the challenge.) The results are fascinating, since setting aside their characteristic modes of musical expression brought out aspects of each artist's creative personality of which he or his colleagues might not have been previously aware.
Each part of the garden is accessed by choosing a numerical destination on the Virtual Music Garden Folly, which here serves as a kind of magical high-tech transport device. According to The Oxford Companion to Gardens, a "folly" is "a species of garden structure characterized by a certain excess in terms of eccentricity, cost, or conspicuous inutility." Its oddly eclectic appearance notwithstanding, the Nu Mu [sic!] Unlimited Pyramid (pictured above) still serves a useful navigational purpose.
Nu Mu [sic!] Unlimited is an annual event sponsored by The Delian Society, an international body of women and men dedicated to the revitalization of tonal art music.
For further information about music gardens and sound gardens, the following links are of interest:
Michael Hannan Music Garden, Australia
Villandry Music Garden, France
St Edmund's School Music Garden, Great Britain
Music & Poetry Garden "Manuel de Falla," Spain
The Toronto Music Garden, Ontario, Canada
The Spirit of Music Garden, Illinois, USA
Harmony Park Music Garden, Minnesota, USA
The Elizabeth Herring Music Garden, North Carolina, USA
The Cepeda Music Garden, Texas, USA
Go to the Virtual Music Garden Entry Page.
Go to the Virtual Music Garden FAQ Page.
Discuss the Nu Mu [sic!] Unlimited Festival.
dillonford@newmusicclassics.com