The Flower of Life: Music Launched Into the Space/Time Continuum by Sacred Geometry

The “The Flower of Life” distance music installation concert invites audiences into a living architecture of sound and space. Drawing from the principles of distance music, Lay crafts an immersive experience that marries the physical laws of acoustics with the mystique of sacred geometry. Words normally used to describe music events fail to describe Distance Music. They are a departure from the norm, resembling more of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) than a standard composition. Through a meticulous arrangement of music location sources, Lay sets up a space-time environment where every audience member’s location creates unique timings and rhythms, akin to exploring different realms within a virtual world. The title, “The Flower of Life,” refers to an iconic figure of seven circles from sacred geometry: esoteric knowledge from ancient times held to contain keys to understanding the universe. By embedding this figure into the concert’s design, Lay pays homage to this historical motif and employs its ratios to dictate musical timing and interaction.

Tuned train horn and glockenspiel apparatuses weighing over 200 lbs, called “sounders,” will sit at the six flower tips on the central circle. When the custom-built onboard radio receiver detects its assigned pitches, it unleashes a staccato blast through the train horn or throws a piston to send the sparkling sound of the glockenspiel into the 8 acres of concert space. Exactly when you hear them depends on your distance from them and the speed of sound: 1145 feet per second @85˚F, hence the term “Distance Music.” As the Brass Band of Central Florida’s 23 brass musicians, split into three synchronized groups, play in concert with the glockenspiels and train horns, the geometry comes alive—not just visually but sonically. Their melodic, harmonic, and dynamic music is composed with the sounders’ fixed, repetitive notes. Lights and haptics from custom-built radio-controlled metronomes keep the human conductors in time with the sounders and each other across long distances.

Listeners are encouraged to roam this vast musical landscape. By walking, attendees engage in a personal act of curation, their movements allowing them to experience varying rhythmic patterns that echo their position in the surrounding underlying geometry. If they stand in the center of the symmetrical Flower of Life, their position will render a metrically stable version of the composition. Suppose they walk to stand in front of a band. In that case, they will hear the other two bands delayed by a factor of the golden ratio (1.618:1). However, as one moves towards the periphery, these rhythms stretch, expand, and reorder, oscillating between order and chaos, offering a direct auditory analog to the visual and spatial distortions of sacred geometry. This is no ordinary concert. It’s an exploration, a game of musical and spatial discovery powered by cutting-edge technology and age-old mathematical principles. For the culturally curious and the sonically adventurous, this event promises to be a highlight of Central Florida’s artistic calendar.