Japanese rock gardens, often called Zen gardens, have been a staple of Zen Buddhist temples since the 14th century. Featuring natural elements embedded in sand, these gardens are raked in patterned waves to represent the ripples of water in an attempt to capture the essence of nature through representational and meditational practices. In modern times, the desktop Zen garden has become a common sight in the cubicle world, with many desk workers hoping to introduce peace and tranquility into their stressful lives.

For this year’s IngenuityFest, we are creating a human-scale version, with a twist.  The Zen SoundScapes garden will feature a sandbox (tentatively 10’x10’) built over a translucent floor with lighting underneath. The garden surrounding the box will feature a sculptural cherry tree that arcs over the box, concealing a camera pointed down at the box to measure light intensities as the sand is raked into different patterns. As festival attendees interact with the rake and sand, different patterns of exposed light levels will emerge and shift. Using software already developed and tested for this project, the camera will average out light intensity levels into a 5x5 grid superimposed over the sandbox. With one axis representing the five notes of a traditional Japanese pentatonic scale, and the other axis representing five octaves, the grid will translate the light intensity of each grid square into tones, allowing users to create music that adapts in real-time to the changing lightscapes reaching the camera.

Sounds from exposed lighting under the sand will be augmented by the movable stones in the sandbox, which will contain lights that blink, pulsate, or stay constantly lit to encourage participants to move those items around and activate particular notes in various ways. Every action a person takes within in the sandbox will have a real-time musical response, creating a dreamy aura of sound that transports participants directly into the Zen mindscape.