MetaGarden is an imaginary-real world that exists both in virtual and real space. It is segmented into related Spheres. The conceptual framework of the garden also allows us to think about the current networks that we are part of. They oftentimes seem like they are built on foundations of social well-being and care, yet these sometimes simultaneously harm us and threaten our privacy and existential agency. Speculating about the systems that we will be part of in the future is interesting, yet our reality is full of unresolved directions of our future development.

Lee Worth Bailey wrote about deep technology, informed by phenomenology, that moves away from egoism and materialism towards caring for the other and the environment. Developing a sense of place within the MetaGarden is based on a tradition of phenomenology that highlights “Being-in-the-world.” It is a primordial ontological participation in the environment through which the existence in the world envelopes and opposes the “industrial ego as subject standing against a world of neutral objects,” as Lee Worth Bailey suggests. “Deep technology” would require a fundamental change in technological thinking towards more self-awareness. Care, instead of competition and ego-driven self-aggrandisement is the way to combat frantic materialism. It is not the rejection of technology, but its opening to deeper grounds of existence.

Within gardens, we forge connections with the organic and the non-organic.Throughout history, the garden as a sheltered environment is constantly re-emerging as a special location for recreation and our contact with nature. Throughout MetaGarden, the question lingers: what will our future gardens look like?