page 2 Even citing 15th Century precedents, above , the choice of garden at the heart of the scheme should still leave readers feeling slightly uneasy; perhaps it appears an odd or perverse choice? This is a very good thing if it starts a dialogue about what medium, what context, what - to adopt the jargon of multimedia, for a moment - interface is appropriate for various types of human activity. The point is, are the events that take place within the Living Garden any odder than those that computers support at present? The Garden's Viewers are so-called because `Viewer' or `helper' applications are the name given to the `plug-ins' which provide your World-Wide Web browser with the functionality to, for example, hear and see events. The Garden's Censer (the device which emulates smell) certainly raises questions about whether the effort involved in emulating such events is actually worthwhile at all. Could one not simply send a bunch of roses? And just because smell can be generated should it? A love letter could be `written' in the form of a 70mm Dolby IMAX feature film, but it is hardly likely to be the best way for individuals to communicate.

The central purpose of the physical manifestation of the garden within the scheme is to establish that the `interface' to a multimedia system is one that does not have to be bound by a 2-D computer screen. In terms of design, why do we accept Window environments which attempt to map 3D worlds onto 2D screens which then themselves emulate a physical environment - with, for example, the ubiquitous desk-top metaphor? Signalling events is not the same as communicating. Taking part in a telephone conversation is, for example, a very different process from talking to someone in person, even though the same `information' may be passed by both channels. Such differences in nuance are simply not currently part of the equation of multimedia, which sees the universal computer as a kind of digital Swiss Army Knife for all and every end.

However, the Garden is more than a parody. Its physicality, its reality, is a key part of the scheme. As a place which occupies space over time, the existence of a garden will depend on the value a culture is prepared to give it. If that space becomes a supermarket then this is not necessarily a `good' or `bad' thing, but it is to a certain extent a reflection on the values of a culture.

The danger with the virtual worlds of the Internet are that since anything can be conjured up, the relative value and importance of `places' is never clear. Although the Garden is not intended to be a `difficult' place to use or reach, the limited effort involved in visiting a site, the process in a sense of pilgrimage, is an important part of the experience. Similarly, the asynchronous constraint within a Garden (which means that an individual cannot - directly - speak to the author of a message) is there because the best way of achieving this dialogue - the appropriate context for this reply - is not the Garden but some social process beyond its walls. The Garden is simply a catalyst, and a space, for human dialogue.