BEYOND GARDEN is inspired by the ancient Chinese classic Commentary of the Water Classics —a geological essay on the phenomenological language of water that de-centers the human narrative onto the margins. Historically, gardens are a manifestation of utopian ideals, an anthropocentric creation of domesticated, imagined nature. Contemporary gardens are also collective, public spaces for gathering, especially taking on socio-political urgency during the pandemic. By attempting to embody the fluidity depicted in Commentary of the Water Classics, BEYOND GARDEN seeks to reconcile the limits of the anthropocene with the intimation of a language and nature that is beyond anthropocentric encounter.

The web VR experience and accompanying AR filter opens a vast, flowing, oceanic desert—reimagining a poetic, collective, post-Anthropocene future where nature no longer centers the human. The meditative light and color of the landscape are reactive to the viewers’ time of day, location, and the moon’s API, and the viewer is free to explore all corners of the landscape through keypad controls. Music is an original creation inspired by traditional Chinese musical textures: layered strings, no vocals, and the audio is also reactive to visitor movements and their time of day. The accompanying AR filter allows the visitor to transport their homes into BEYOND GARDEN and explore the new site-specific work in a truly immersive way.