Gardening Inspiration
Sound Wall — Trentham Gardens, Cheshire. UK.
The sound Wall was created by Clive Mollart and the music by Shaun Bailey. It can now be found in the gardens at the Royal Horticultural Society in Cheshire. The wall is an interactive wall for all of the visitors to the garden to play or just sit in the small curved amphitheatre and listen to the music happen around them. The wall is placed in a garden with lush floral plants and stained glass panels that are striking against the white wall.
The wall is approximately two metres high and houses fourteen sensors mounted in slots in the wall — the sensors include laser sensors, pressure sensors, proximity sensors and dials. The slots are placed in irregular places (high and low), different sizes and varying orientations.
Proximity sensors register someone entering the amphitheatre and creates a continuous ambient background soundscape but when a visitor, interacts with a sensor in the wall the background sound is reduced and the sensor input becomes more prominent and visa versa. Like an instrument people can play it in different ways to create different types of music.
Always having music playing provides some form of interest for the people visiting the installation whether they choose to interact or just enjoy the peaceful ambient music happening around them. After interacting with the wall the inquiring person can build on their creativity and experiment with the sounds and create a calming composition for themselves and the listeners.
The wall caters for aspiring musicians of all ages by placing the slots with sensors at varying heights and the music can be created singularly or by a group of people.
I found the large white structure eye catching against the greenery, wood deck and glass panels. It is imposing and its intriguing design would have the visitors to the garden inquisitive. The thought of a wall that knows you are there and starts to play music when you enter draws you in to want to know more.
An installation in a community garden that is eye catching or beautiful will always catch a person’s interest and if we take this thought further we need to find some way of making the installation and garden interesting to the visitors. Use of unusual shapes, colours and eye catching features.
The slots in the wall housing the sensors are see through, placed at different heights and irregular in shape and size. The hole in the wall provides an affordance of placing your hand in there just to see what happens. This feeling is heightened by the instigation of music when you enter the amphitheatre. Although the creator mentions catering for all ages (young and old) by the placement of the slots however this would be a very useful strategy to engage older participants to engage in gentle activity reaching up or down.
The type of feature that may catch someone’s attention could be posts in the garden, water, framework to a trellis, artwork or even the plants themselves. The music can be generated by the touch of a person, a critter in the garden, the wind or even the amount of sunlight.
Various types of music could be used to create an ambient soundscape with the thought of also using birdsong to create that peaceful environment. Creative gentle music could be created by anyone visiting the installation providing a fun and relaxing experience.
The wall in the Trentham Garden is imposing and intriguing and almost demands people to walk up and interact with it. In doing so (whether they are a musician or not) they inadvertently are part of creating a beautiful space to enjoy. In creating a similar installation in a community garden it should have that explorative nature and people can find, explore and make music to fit their feelings, and what they are doing at that time.
