Can you be at a place where you can sense the present and the past simultaneously? 

A place that you breathe in, feel the sunlight on your face, take in the aroma, see which colours paint the flowers, hear the brook sparkle… And than you realize that everything surrounding was here before you, in another time. Which trees and plants outlive their planters? Which buildings are hundreds of years old?

In celebration of 425 years of the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden Iris van der Ende and I created an audio walk about the rise and fall of Tulipmania, the flower trade that crashed the Dutch market in 1637.  In the audio walk you can hear sounds of the garden specially recorded using binaural SoundMan microphones that are worn in the ear, as you zoom in and experience the garden up close.

Download the Audio Walk to listen at home or in the garden by clicking here.

We opened the audio walk during the Museum Weekend April 18-19. The weather was sunny and perfect for our project, as well the other performances and installations presented by T.I.M.E. (This is Music Theater), Composition, and Art Science departments of the Royal Conservatoire The Hague.  There will be a repeat during Museum Night during the last weekend of May.

Download the Audio Walk by clicking here.  

Collaborating with Iris van der Ende was a blast!  We shared ideas, edits, rewrites, recording sessions, and re-recording sessions.

Special thanks to:

Hortus Botanicus Leiden
Marijn Prakke (voice actor in the Drie Samenspraeken tussen Waermondt & Gaergoedt)
Stefan Bandalac, video
T.I.M.E. (This is Music Theatre) program at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague
EWP (Elektronic Werkplaats) at the RC
Yannis Kyriakides, Justin Bennett