As visitors wander through the gardens and abbey ruins, they will encounter the strange and wonderful sounds of mechanical roundabouts, the whir of clockwork bandstands and creak of wind powered fountains. For His work, Ergo Phizmiz has created the sound of a powerful mechanical garden constructed by a crazed Victorian. A short story of Forbury Hill written by the Miller and McAfee Press is to be heard from the high vantage point overlooking the gardens, in which characters from the past and present interact in a fictitious narrative that implies historical truth. Chris Watson tunes into the sounds of wildlife to explore the garden's turbulent past. The mistle thrush and robin sing from the high canopy of horse chesnuts, as experienced by the Vikings, and descendents of the carrion crows, witnesses to the executions at the abbey gateway, can now be heard gathering sandwich scraps from lunchtime visitors. |
