Garden Interface
Sonar+D 2025
Garden Interface is an interactive audiovisual installation that transforms a living plant into a speculative instrument β a MIDI controller, a translator of organic signals, and a portal into sonic ecosystems. Created for the Sonar+D 2025 Exhibition, the work invites participants to touch, sense, and listen through nature itself.
Built using Playtronica, Python code, Ableton Live, and TouchDesigner, the system translates tactile interaction into reactive soundscapes and visuals β generating evolving sonic textures inspired by lifeforms beyond human perception. Visitors wear headphones and activate sounds by touching or hovering near the plant, turning a bio-digital sculpture into a listening garden.
The installation features a custom-designed base, hand-sculpted and layered with moss, pigments, reflective materials, and botanical textures β evoking both natural topographies and alien organisms. Projected visuals shimmer above the sculpture, responding in real time to each participant's interaction, creating an intimate, responsive, and phygital environment.
At its core, Garden Interface asks: What if nature was our touchscreen? It reimagines the interface not as a glass rectangle, but as a living organism β one that listens, responds, and remembers.
Listen to the Garden Interface Soundtrack
A fragment of sound grown from touch, resonance, and hidden ecologies. Textures shift and bloom like a living organism β an evolving dialogue between human gesture and unseen forces.
Created with: TouchDesigner, Ableton Live, Python, Playtronica, Real Plants π±
3D Props: @___izz.y
Visuals + Sound: Sara Groborz
Photography:
Cecilia Diaz Betz @ceciliadiazbetz
Clara Orozco @claror
Eva Diaz @thisisnotevadiaz
Fernando Schlaepfer @anendfor
Juan Sabatino @juansabatinophoto
RomaΜn YnΜaΜn @romanynan
Victor Roncally @roncca Nerea Coll @nereacoll