A Garden Orchestra

We like when science and music collide, especially when it makes us rethink the meaning of sound.

News site Vice published a video story on an artist who ditches the violin and piano and finds her instruments in nature. She also proudly proclaims: “I want to make a mouth for plants.”

For this artist, her garden is her symphony!

Mileece, a Los Angeles-based artist and environmental designer who goes by one name, attaches electrodes to hearty plant leaves and conducts their bio-emissions into a special software program she created. The data collected in the software is then turned into musical notes. She creates her own unique compositions based on each plant’s different sound. She has performed her unique creations — what she calls “organic electronic music” — at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Kew Gardens and has been an artist-in-resident at Los Angeles’ Lycee International school.

In the video, you can see Mileece pressing gently on a leaf and a light sound akin to the ringing of a small bell emerging. It’s very interesting to witness. You can listen to more of Mileece’s music here, here and here. As a whole, her tracks are very soothing and calming, as a garden orchestra should be!

Mileece’s art is part of a larger movement to recognize that plants are sentient — or capable of feeling, hearing and smelling — and should be  treated with the utmost care and respect. While we don’t know enough about botany to even assert an opinion, it’s intriguing to think of a landscape in which every plant and flower is capable of producing music.

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