In partnership with the meteorology department of Wageningen University I developed a site-specific composition for a rose garden, where a weather station was located. Every minute the station would measure weather data and send it to a server. The measured variables were temperature, air pressure, humidity and wind velocity. A computer program especially designed for this installation compared the real time data with the numbers of the previous day. The difference, if there was one, determined the composition.

The rose garden installation consists of four loud speakers. Each loud speaker plays one weather parameter, either temperature, air pressure, humidity or wind velocity.

A woman's voice is heard over the loud speakers. She sings each separate word from the sentence, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.”

The scale of difference between the actual and historical measurements decides which word will be heard. If the variables are equal, the word “rose” is heard. If the difference between variables is very large, the word „I“ is heard. All the other words fall somewhere in between:

+5=I
+4=beg
+3=your
+2= pardon
+1=garden
0=rose
-1=a
-2=you
-3=promised
-4=never
-5=I

Each of the four parameters is individually compared and calculated. This could result in this sort of scenario: On Sunday at 3:10 pm, you hear the word “garden” over the first loud speaker as the difference in temperature, “rose” over the second loudspeaker as the result for humidity, “garden” over the third loudspeaker as the result for air pressure and “I” over the fourth loud speaker for wind velocity. Every minute a new comparison is made.

Over all loud speakers the same voice is heard.

This installation is a real time sound installation directed by the weather.