This article starts from the premise that communication is the fundamental human attribute. However, in contemporary conditions, the integrity of the message has taken precedence over the communicative. Exemplary instances are the cult of authenticity in recording engineering and the positioning of the auditor as end-user and focal point of stereophony. The essay uses Khan and de Rooy’s installation The Garden of A —to introduce a spatial and environmental relational sound practice, suggesting diaspora and translation as key terms to replace the Cartesian model of message and receiver.