"Introspective Garden" is a site-specific, embodied sound experience. The deeper we listen to our surroundings, the more we merge with the sounds of the garden and create a fantastic soundscape.

It was the humble garden that first encouraged humans to make the great leap from roaming hunter-gatherers to settled farmers around 10,000 years ago, as jungle plots gave way to fenced enclosures and crops. The whole history of humanity is tied up with gardening, meaning that these spaces have changed dramatically over time and across cultures.

Today we think of gardens as peaceful places – the perfect spot for dozing on a lazy afternoon. Introspective Garden invites the spectators to immerse themselves in an interactive composition, made of the garden-soundscape.

On the acoustic level, the garden soundscape reflects all the living organisms of the place. The plant species determine which insects and birds settle in the garden. Within the composition, the insects and animals form the sound sources of the foreground. This foreground is embedded in the immersive sounds of the speakers hidden in the garden.

Introspective Garden invites you to listen to this electronically altered soundscape. It is utilizing technology in order to help the spectators to reach deeper states of listening. When listening becomes deeper, it affects our autonomic nervous system. This is measured by a small wireless EEG sensor, worn by the listeners around their heads. Depending on the depth of listening, the data from the sensor creates and changes the electronic soundscape of "Introspective Garden" in real-time. The electronics recede further and further until eventually they completely release the ambient sounds of the garden. In this way, our attention is drawn further and further to the garden's ambient sounds. In real-time, the multisensory composition adapts to the different modes of our perception. 

We become one with the environment, and ourselves. Through the perceptible reflection of our self within the soundscape, we experience the artwork as a completely new kind of self-awareness.

Funded by Musikfonds, die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Neustart Kultur and BBK Bayern