Whisper Garden

As part of our ongoing exploration on alternative digital spaces, we present Whisper Gardens, a collectively built digital space for asynchronous-anonimous communication. Whisper Gardens aim to be an intimate playable 3D enviroment, made by the 3D scans of objects of real life creating surreal dream-like spaces in which players can leave messages to be found by other players.

To create a Whisper Garden we invite a group of up to 12 people to record 360º videos of elements in the proximities. Those videos are then processed to create 3D assets that will form the digital space. Through a simple card game, we collectively decide on the size, position and number of objects. Afterwards, the game is exported and published online for participants and curious visitors.

Workshop Structure

Introduction (10 min)
A short introduction is given about platforms and internet communities that are currently exploring ways to be connected online as an alternative to what is offered by Big Tech platforms.

Phase 1 - Video Recording (30 min)
Participants explore the surroundings in pairs, looking for an object or area of interest to record a short video with their phones.They are also equipped with color flashlights to enhance and slightly alter the appearance of the scans.

Break - Processing Scans (15 min)
Before the break, we ask each participant to select a video.Then, the video is processed into a 3D object and imported into the game engine.

Phase 2 - Collective design (25 min)
Each participant receives a wooden block representing an object they scanned, as well as a set of action cards.Taking turns, they present their chosen object and place it on the printed map. At the same time, one of the workshop facilitators does the same in the game engine, thus creating an augmented digital twin. Once every element is placed on the map, participants use their action cards to clone, scale, or rotate an object of their choice. These actions are simultaneously translated to the game engine as well.

Conclusion (10 min)
Once the digital world feels complete, participants are given a short walkthrough of the space, as well as a demo of the whisper mechanic. Participants will receive an email afterwards with a link to download the game.

Past editions

The first edition of this workshop took place at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in the context of their exhibition Nowhere but Nature. The resulted Whisper Garden can be played or downloaded here.