8. Messages page 2

Arcadian egos?

Living Books could encompass a range of messages and meanings much broader than declarations of love, however. It will by now be apparent that whilst one author of a message may choose to read out a poem, another individual may base their Living Book on their own spoken words or thoughts, or perhaps a piece of music. Within a garden, an Echoing Tree may unlock words of love for one individual, whilst for the visitor in possession of a different Key it might play music, or reproduce a spoken stream of consciousness.

As outlined in the chapter on Viewers, the Echoing Tree is only one of a number of Viewers within a garden. Images or even scent-based Living Books could form an alternative to a sound-based message. An author might, for example, decide to use a visual authoring tool in order to capture something as straightforward as selected images of their family growing up. As a genre, perhaps Living Books like this might be called `books of life'.

A completely different approach would be that of creating a `book of self', a diary for personal reflection. Author and visitor do not have to be different people. The garden, in an example like this, could serve as anything ranging from a place for private reflection and contemplation, to (perhaps literally) a narcissistic pool reflecting self love.

The process of listening to a message has been described as a solitary experience up to now. Someone could, however, decide to create a Living Book to celebrate an anniversary, with two or more parties visiting a garden to hear a message together. Here another aspect of the Living Garden becomes apparent. The Garden is an `open architecture' scheme not only because it is literally built upon open landscape, but also because the inhabitants (or visitors) to that landscape may choose how they wish to use aspects of this space. Whilst the holder of a Key effectively controls access to a message, this individual may still decide to share the experience of listening to a Living Book by visiting a garden with a partner or friend. The garden is not just a reflective, solitary environment, then, since message-and-Key can be `behaviourally' tailored, in various ways: an author might, for example, pass on a Key, suggesting that their recipient goes to a particular garden on a particular day. What they could add is that they will be in a different part of the garden on the same date - if the recipient wants to meet them, after listening to their message - they will know where to find them.