Gardens by the Bay (Singapore)

Thinking through Alfred Gell (1945-1997)’s “Art and Agency” & “Technology of Enchantment”

In Gellian terms, Gardens by the Bay is not merely a garden—it is an artefact of systemic enchantment, wherein the boundary between technological and biological agency collapses into a cybernetic sublime. It is the apex of what Gell would call a distributed network of agency, where intention is no longer isolated in a singular artist but dispersed across programmers, biologists, architects, and policymakers. And yet, the viewer—enchanted, overawed—perceives this as a unified, almost mythological entity.

Central to Gell’s theory is the concept of the index, the way an artwork becomes a conduit for agency. Here, the Supertree Grove, towering vertical ecosystems embedded with solar collectors, acts as the techno-index par excellence. These tree-like sculptures are both real and artificial: their chlorophyll is silicone, their bark is photovoltaic, and their crown is algorithm. To the viewer, however, they appear as sacred sentinels—cybernetic Bodhi trees. Their height and glow confer both the familiarity of forest awe and the unfamiliarity of sci-fi wonder. They "do not just stand there", as Gell would say, they act upon us—modulating breath, voice, and even time perception.

The Flower Dome and Cloud Forest conservatories function as time capsules and weather engines, collapsing vast geographies and temporalities into a single immersive biosphere. This compression of climatic difference is itself an artistic strategy—a technology of enchantment that allows the visitor to step from Mediterranean drylands into mist-shrouded highlands in seconds. Gell’s theory accommodates this interdisciplinary intentionality—the domes act as performative containers of displaced nature, mediated by curatorial, technical, and governmental “artists.”

Moreover, Gardens by the Bay is Gellian in its ritual efficacy. It is not decorative; it is transformative. Visitors leave changed—not only in perception but in environmental cognition. The work induces ecological reverence through aesthetic spectacle. In Gell’s terms, the garden is an “agent of becoming,” producing shifts in moral, cultural, and ontological states.

Finally, as a national symbol, Gardens by the Bay serves as an index of Singapore’s aspirational identity: postcolonial city-state turned biotechnological Eden. The garden, then, is not just flora and steel—it is a diplomatic icon, a green oracle, speaking across the spheres of art, science, and statecraft.