'On the Aesthetics of Gravel' page 4

CRITIQUE

Did we realise the primary aim of the installation, to explain the concepts behind the garden? The answer to this question appears - generally - to have been 'yes' in terms of the exhibition as a public event, but 'no' in terms of the project as an assessable piece of academic work.

In terms of the public event; as 'curators' we were able to serve as guides to the exhibition, explaining reference points, answering questions and leading visitors through the garden (but not necessarily down the garden path), establishing the flow of ideas and narrative which built a picture of what the scheme was supposed to represent. The installation served its didactic functions well, although - as a whole - I never felt that we successfully established a unifying aesthetic, which was important in defining an overall identity to the project.

Text

In terms of communicating the ideas, however, many of those who wanted to find out more about the Garden did so directly as a result of being able to read the handouts and text which had been produced. Because they felt that they were approaching the work with some knowledge of its reference points and could engage with it on a much more even basis to discover more. This was real interactivity - it just illustrated the point that the process does not necessarily have to be mediated by a computer.

Having sketched an outline of the garden as a scheme, four simple diagrams provided the means to illustrate the technological mechanics which sat behind the scenes of the Living Garden (the online versions, here, being less attractive but showing the principal). As well as the text and illustrations the visitor was able to get a feel for the way that the garden would function by using the working model of the authoring tool which had been devised.

Interestingly, whilst the book describing the garden was read (in part) by a few dozen visitors, it was probably the least 'visible' element on show.

Authoring

One of the key ideas behind the project was that the design of authoring tools should be considered in relation to who is an author, and what that author wants to record. Rather than depend on a software package which has to be tailored in various ways to capture and produce multimedia content, a theme of authoring within the Garden was that this would be a process based on a whole series of specialised - but simplified - authoring tools. For example, to record an image, there would be devices ranging from the Living Garden equivalent of a disposable Kodak 'Fun' camera to a professional Nikon SLR. Such tools - the political theory of the garden argues - would also be made available both publicly and privately. This aimed to question the idea that an authoring tool - by definition - is something like Macromedia's Director, and an author - necessarily - is someone who learns who to manipulate such software. As a definition, this prevailing view seems as adequate as describing a writer as 'someone who uses Microsoft Word 6.0.'

The working example of the authoring tool that was chosen for the installation was the Sound Pipe. This was essentially a drainpipe-like device which provided the means for any visitor to record, replay, re-record (if necessary) and then commit a voice message to the Garden. A token - called a Key - provided the means to uniquely identify any message recorded using this tool, and worked in a manner somewhat similar to a cash card operating a service till.

The aesthetic of the drainpipe seemed to strike a reasonable balance within the installation as a whole. The allusion of water-as-information, draining into the adjacent garden, was picked up by almost everyone, and the municipal look of the piping used gave a feel of a public utility that might be found on the high-street.

Keys and Viewers

The physical form of the Key worked less well, being based on what was instantly recognisable as a 3.5" jack-plug. Each jack-plug had been fitted with a different value resistor which provided the means to uniquely identify it (as a 'Key') to an IBM-compatible computer hidden behind the partitions. A message recorded when a particular Key was inserted into the drainpipe could therefore be associated with a unique resistance value - a value which was memorised by the computer alongside the digitised voice recording. In this way, the jack-plug as Key provided the means to create a working mechanism which could represent a unique message, rather than actually holding a copy of it - the message itself being recording on the hard disk of the hidden computer.

When the same Key was inserted into the watering can within the conservatory (an analogue of one of the Garden's Viewers) the messaging process was simply reversed. An interface attached to the same computer measured the resistance of the Key that had been inserted, and by matching this value against a internal database table located, retrieved and re-played the digitised sound message via a speaker in the spout of the watering can.

The beauty of this demonstration was that it showed how one simple process could support a variety of different messages. These Keys did not simply recall 'here's one I prepared earlier' versions of the same message - they actually allowed anyone visiting the show to record their voice, take away a token of this message (in the Key) and retrieve it when they wanted to via the watering can. This illustrated the point that even though a common authoring/retrieval (pipe/watering can) system served all messages it still provided the means for almost anyone to create a unique personal message.

As a microcosm of the Living Garden scheme this model worked well, although there were one or two visitors who thought that the watering can was literally intended to be one of the playout devices that would be used within the Living Garden. In these couple of instances some explanation was also demanded of us of the role of the adjacent garden gnome - an object whose purpose was decorous rather than functional, despite our attempts to develop an 'active' version which reacted to the name 'Jocelyn Stevens' (a former, formidable head of the RCA, known in the press as 'piranha teeth') by dropping its trousers.

One of the difficulties with the installation Key was that it was somewhat 'clunky'. As a mechanical device it had to be manually inserted into a jack-plug socket. Keys within the Living Garden itself would not contain resistors, but store a unique code - generated via the remote centralised multimedia database - uploaded onto them. Retrieving a message within the scheme proper would not, necessarily, require any kind of physical connection since information could be transferred locally via wireless telecommunications. Establishing a feeling for this 'transparency' of operation - the way an automatic door opens when you approach, rather than having to pull down a door handle - was attempted. I had researched and identified an infra-red contender to serve as a Key, and had made approaches to Olivetti which was developing 'Active Badge' Technology, but unfortunately it proved impractical to obtain samples from the manufacturer in the time available.

PARK MANAGEMENT

The inevitability of those 'unforeseen circumstances' that will crop up in any public event also took a toll on setting up the installation. The drainpipe alone required a considerable amount of time and effort to develop in terms of building, programming and testing, and further difficulties were introduced because of the very late stage at which we were finally able to obtain the IBM-compatible computer requested. Unfortunately, the unit obtained not only lacked the necessary sound card, but we were told that the machine was also infected with a computer virus which we had to find a means to 'search and destroy' as the Course Technician was busy setting up his own joint project with one of the students - one of the distinctly Tom Sharpe-like episodes that added so much colour to the course.

Completing the installation was also delayed since none of the electrical mains distribution wiring that had been agreed for the project been rigged, which meant that a great deal of the limited time available to set up the installation was spent on practicalities such as buying mains extensions and plugs, laying cables and drilling access points, as well as purchasing a PC sound card and virus checking software. Although the drainpipe crashed on a few occasions (Sod's Law dictating that one of these was during the assessment walk-around) we did ultimately manage to make the device function as intended.

Once the authoring process had been demonstrated the visitor was shown a selection of other mocked-up (non-functioning) authoring tools, to reinforce the idea that a particular tool would be selected to create a particular type of message, rather than - as with computer software - a unitary package would have to be configured as a tool prior to its use. These included a simple stem microphone (to emphasise that sound recordings could be made through a variety of instruments - not just a 'drain pipe' - in different places; an author would not just be reliant on the drainpipe in the high street, for example). Several types of camera were also on display to illustrate that the Living Garden could incorporate messages based on a variety of media, not just sound recordings alone.

The final area within the Conservatory displayed a selection of Keys to illustrate the physical diversity that these devices might take. Although a jack-plug as Key had been used in order to build the working authoring environment, within the theoretical and technical model of the Garden the Key could be minute - since it only had to store a few bytes of information. The Key, remember, just stores a personal/record identification number - which links via the network to the record. It does not store the data of the record itself. This is somewhat similar to a cash card - which provides access to your banking records, whilst not actually holding the records on the piece of plastic.

The implications of this are that the Key serves not just as a token in terms of the mechanics of unlocking a message, but its form could also be related to the content of a message. Not only could a Key be secreted within a photograph, book or other object but its small size means that it could also, for example, be a prosthetic inserted into someone's body - an individual would literally carry a message around with them.

Again, in the context of a guided tour of the garden - in which a narrative could be developed and questions answered - building upon each explanation of the elements within the scheme generally seemed to work well.

Where there was a problem was on those occasions when there were more visitors to the installation than guides, or when individuals preferred not to be guided as they wanted to have a quick look around by themselves. The major components behind the garden had been broken down into distinct elements, of course - an explanation of the concept, an outline of the mechanics, a working model in miniature, and then a mock-up of the real garden. Even so, the independent visitor missing the conservatory and the guides may well have been perplexed. However, whether a 2-D based solution would have achieved the same ends any better is open to question. It also misses the central point, anyway. The Garden was challenging because it introduced new reference points which - by their definition - would not be immediately familiar. That is it was challenging the use of a PC and 2D interface. To have used this technology to make the point would surely have defeated the whole point of the exercise?

The walk through the conservatory area served to outline the major concepts behind the Living Garden and demonstrated the key procedural processes involved in creating and replaying messages. It also led the visitor to the entrance to a physical garden.