Meet the Sonic Artist Making Music with Plants: Sound Builders

Subscribe to MOTHERBOARD: bit.ly/Subscribe-To-MOTHERBOARD
In this episode of Sound Builders, we went to Los Angeles, to meet with Mileece. She's a sonic artist and environmental designer who's developed the technology to give silent seedlings a portal to their own sonic expression.
Channeling a plant's sentience into an instrument is no obvious feat. Mileece's background as an audiophile and programmer dovetailed to turn a garden into an organic medium for music. She pulls this off by attaching electrodes to leafy limbs, which conduct the bio-electric emissions coming off living plants. The micro-voltage then gets sucked into her self-authored software, turning data into ambient melodies and harmonic frequencies.
It's simply not enough for these green little squirts to just spit out noise. All this generative organic electronic music must sound beautiful, too. As a renewable energy ambassador, Mileece's larger goal behind her plant music is to enhance our relationship with nature. And if plant music can have a pleasing aesthetic articulation then hopefully we all can give a greater damn about our environment.
While some may see the paradox in an organic medium generating electronic music, Mileece does not. She sees this as a symbiotic relationship, a vital one, and one that hints to a larger relationship she's been trying to unify, which is that between humans and nature.
To learn more about harnessing the power of music, also check out "The Distortion of Sound," a new documentary about the decline of high-fidelity sound: distortionofsound.com/
Watch Episode 1: bit.ly/Xdj2p5
Check out Sounder Builders season 1: bit.ly/1qCzF9t
Follow MOTHERBOARD
Facebook: / motherboardtv
Twitter: / motherboard
Tumblr: / motherboardtv
Instagram: / motherboardtv

[@serianaa]

What is your favourite instrument?? Me: plants in my lawn

[@jaxnean2663]

"We are nature, we are ecology" love this quote.

[@American-knight-hawk]

Where is it from because I now also like it

[@adayg8367]

Our mother is so beautiful she created such a beutiful world and for us to destroy is so sad.. she deserves better

[@chriscsy3633]

It’s from this video, the woman says it

[@AllThisOverASliceOfGabagool]

It all stems from R. Murray Schafer who in the 70's wrote about the ecology of music. So much of sound today is just noise, and things like what this amazing artist is doing, is allowing us to focus on the sounds that are of nature, not of man, and allows us to connect with nature in a unique way.

[@highspacefox]

this is so cool! imagine walking through a botanical garden, while creating a symphony! or a pot field!

[@lydia6787]

hi, i'm a seventeen year old film scorer from berlin. i will be attending a 48hr youth hackathon tomorrow and appreciate any kind of input/useful sources i might want to check out. my goal: sonifying realtime data. my ideas: realtime bitcoin transactions, probably there's a twiter emotions real api. i am quite new to the world of sonification, and i doubt too many people will be familar with Max/Pure Data (otherwise I would of course work with that). i am fascinated by which TYPE of data could be USEFUL to sonify - i mean why sonify if the visual representation is powerful already. tools i am thinking about using: "Gibber" or p5.js" or Jupyter Noebooks...so let me know if you have any useful sources on the process of realtime data sonification! -greetings from a semi-sunny kreuzberg(:

[@tippinonmyha1321]

The fact that the stars to the plants all make a unique sound of their own. And anything in-between, I wonder if plants enjoy the music we make? Or if it's just racket to their metaphorical ears. I've heard of people playing classical music for their plants for years. And been told it's beneficial. Like children listening to classical music, does it help them both grow? Questions questions. And man the sounds a pot farm would make. Lol would it be bickering between the plants on who's louder? 🤣

[@iRateDoran]

This is a super interesting video! I love it when Mileece says "The world I want to see is where we use technology to enhance our relationship with ourselves. We are nature."

[@tmalonso]

if you listen closely enough, everything is eternally singing :)

[@johnorosz7477]

All the souls to have returned form the near death experiences they had indicate that this is TRUE in "that other place". Light and sound coming from all living things with crystal like structures also with their own unique light.

[@tmalonso]

@@johnorosz7477 the kingdom of heaven is within you ;)

[@Tubemaster32]

thats true, even matter is just a wave swinging

[@____-gy5mq]

‎

[@nicksanders9148]

yes, the stars do sing!

[@blueinkheart]

Why are the people commenting on this video such snobs? This woman is doing something really fucking amazing, creating music in a way that 99.99999999% of the population woulf never think to make it, with the underlying intention to do something else really awesome - to hypothetically give voices to plants! More people need to be reminded that plants are actually alive and more complicated abd even sensitive than we usually think, and SHE'S FINDING A WAY TO ILLUSTRATE THAT. THAT'S AMAZING. What more do you bitches want? Christ!

[@jacobklassen113]

Its a sin to use Gods name as a cuss word

[@diji5071]

Especially vegans, they literally eat plants while they're still alive. Absolutely horrendous.

[@NathanChisholm041]

Because it blows hard! Sound like crap thats why...

[@izzibreezes68]

Here is a defensive essay for your delights, dearest internet people of the utmost imagination and politesse ;) Plant bio-feedback has been going on since before Cleve Backster popularised it in the 1970's (whom I met and refer to all the time) and the first plant music by John Lifton.. I am working to evolve that work using and creating more advanced tech to do so for the purpose of furthering the inquiry and creating connections to facilitate our positive ecology. I am not measuring the sound of plants, although they do make tiny sounds in the soil. There are micro-voltages that plants emit and this is what is being measured. They are conducted via the electodes, which are just pieces of highly conductive metal. Then these analogous waveforms are amplified in the analog domain which is simply converted from analog to binary via an A/D ( as is standard in modern tech ). This signal, which is now a similar waveform as started out, just as a PWM wave that is an interpolated version of the analogue wave (look up A/D conversion to understand more, there is 0 esoteric stuff in that, or in any of this for that matter) is then patched directly into code I've written, much like a Control Voltage in an analog synth. It's pretty simple, but you need to learn things to do it properly. I did a degree in sound engineering and sonic art after biology in college and that is how I got to understanding where to start. Then I didn't sleep, worked really *%&ing hard, spent a lot of time alone instead of having fun partying, got ridiculed, got help and have basically just been at it, doing this and waste to fuel cell energy systems work to try to help keep this planet going. I've been completely broke and all sorts of shit has happened, but I've stuck with it. But you're right about one thing, Ant Man, you could plug it into your ass and it would make ass music..."insert comment about mouth / ass correlation here" But what you can't choose, is that you too make micro-voltages and that is the thing that makes you just like a plant. You probably should consider also, that electrodes are passive and rely on a circuit to 'measure' so would only 'measure resistance' if that is what the circuit measures. BTW I didn't know about Damenhuer till about five years into doing this, which has been for about 15 years. I've never been there and they weren't the impetus for my work I do, so I don't really think there's much for to say about it except that I'm happy that they have done well to help advance this understanding. I'm not here to do much but try to help people generate respect and care for plants and therefore the planet and its inhabitants. It's truly sad but not surprising that there is so much anger and excitement to make ridiculous comments. This is a common phenomenon by people comfortable as pseudonyms on the internet. More interest on this thread for matters that this project points to that are actually important to us all would be better and actually worthy of the oxygen the plants themselves make for us. Agree?

[@NeilMcGuiness]

+mileece i'anson +Ant Man BOOM, FACE Ant Man, next time you feel the uncontrollable desire to aggressively troll the culmination of years of somebody's research and work, you might consider that they know a shit load more about it than you. More to the point, it's called Sonic ART and therefore is an important expression of the world around us and is widely interpretable. If you're so fixed in your mind about how rigidly static and fixed the world around us is then that's cool. But leave the people who are trying to make the unlistenable and unseeable tangible to it, it doesn't affect you. Peace to you and yours! X

[@ci6288]

+mileece i'anson Hi Mileece - whats the input impedance of the op amps/ intrumentations amps you are using ? You also realise that the reaction you get when you touch the plant is more to do with your own bodies electrical field interfering with the electrodes than any reaction in the plant right ? Actually touching th eplants changes the capacitance - in the lab we have to be really strict about not touching the plants when measuring action potentials - in fact we often use a faraday cage. I think Antman has some points but is also confused - he would nothave a problem with an ecg reading of a human heart - even though the beeping is obviously ot produced by our heart but the machine - so he needs to understand that reading complex electrical activity in plants can also give us interesting information. Btu we do have to get the technical side right.

[@TheMainphrame]

Super cool passion. As a skeptic of the own work that I do in IT, I would touch the plants with a giant list of materials to see how they react. Exhausting, maybe, thorough, yes. Very inspired by your work!

[@barden6275]

Super cool stuff. I'm so sorry that the assholes of the internet seem to have come together to collectively wallow in their own shit down here in the comments, but people seem to take other people's intelligence and success as an attack on their own lack thereof. The possibilities of synths and nontraditional, technologically-enhanced music in general is very interesting to me, and it's very inspiring to see people like you pushing some of those envelopes!

[@lydia6787]

hi, i'm a seventeen year old film scorer from berlin. i will be attending a 48hr youth hackathon tomorrow and appreciate any kind of input/useful sources i might want to check out. my goal: sonifying realtime data. my ideas: realtime bitcoin transactions, probably there's a twiter emotions real api. i am quite new to the world of sonification, and i doubt too many people will be familar with Max/Pure Data (otherwise I would of course work with that). i am fascinated by which TYPE of data could be USEFUL to sonify - i mean why sonify if the visual representation is powerful already. tools i am thinking about using: "Gibber" or p5.js" or Jupyter Noebooks...so let me know if you have any useful sources on the process of realtime data sonification! -greetings from a semi-sunny kreuzberg(:

[@IGazeYouInTheHaze]

I need someone in my life that looks at me the way the interviewer looks at her

[@dialibertine9551]

This girl is the one who rly can be called special! The one from the miserable number of extraordinary, bright people. In the world of mediocrity and materialism, she came up with something spiritual and absolutely unprecedented ever before. Just fell in love.

[@JB-if7pm]

Uhh you don't get out much do you? She is hardly innovative given we did the same sonic experiments as children here in New Zealand at schools in the 90s. We even tried tapping into the mycelium networks, different soils, fruits and yes plants and trees. Every living thing has a vibration and a frequency which creates patterns, sound and sometimes even light refraction! We did this all at the tender age of 8 and 9. Stock standard really. Nobody is reinventing the wheel here but apparently if you call yourself a "SoNiC ArTiSt" it's a whole new thing.

[@elektrochose]

they should send an interviewer that knows anything about sound or electronics, like how the signal is being turned into sound. clearly the composer (mileece) had to make a lot of decisions about how to transform the waveform into music (because it sounded too harmonious to just be the signal from the plant). i work with waves from the brain and have tried doing similar things and honestly it just sounds like noise, can't imagine it would be any different with plants. i think more tech-y discussion would be appropriate for motherboard

[@carbonladder]

Yes this is galvanic response, with translation to conform to the perception that plants should sound peaceful. In fact, plant bioactivity sounds like bursts of noise. See my channel

[@shroudofstars]

I've been listening to this girl for over ten yrs. Love her work :)

[@Xxvzqx999]

i cant find it??

[@heleneramos889]

I visited heaven and returned to Earth, to tell you this: In heaven, plants situated over little Islands @ the sea emanate pure and celestial armonies without any technic from its flowers. Watching it all, what I felt was blissfulness as well as the beings being there. So great!

[@dominikhk9134]

I have a bit of electronics background and I think its fair to say that this is more or less just random noise that is produced with this box. You could mount those electrodes anywhere, be it a chair, your car, your dog, your toilet seat and as long as you amplify it enough (depends on the material) you would get some noise (random flactuation in electrical potential) that can be an input into a music generator.

[@innerlotus7052]

this is freakin' brilliant, and moves the whole interspecies communication agenda forward in an incredible way

[@Vincenzo-wn1or]

The world is a better place for having people (and plants) like this

[@DT__1]

NOW I KNOW HOW I CAN FINALY TALK TO MY PLANTS! Have an actual conversation.instead doing telepathic thing which takes time to comprehend the right response. But this, this just settled the whole picture for me what to do how to ask how to get answers how to understand them. Sick ! 😊

[@orietbardot1534]

Simply amazing. Good work. Goes to show we really don’t know anything for sure. Love the vibration plants can give us. I won’t pretend that I understand it too well, but the possibilities are endless.

[@matairae5270]

This is amazing! The potential of this tech. eg. security alarms. Great stuff

[@ehdyn]

The part where she says just F'ing shoot me and the interviewer just melted :) Love Mileece.. her old music is gorgeous as well..

[@1innamorato57]

This is wonderfull , I am so happy too see such a young person teaching people that plants are so importamt to our well being, bringing technology into play was a very good idea because of our stessfull lifestyle this method of showing ous 4he flants frequecy or sound not only is beaughtifull it connects us to nature., ,!

[@lysblomsten]

Its so nice to think about all you people out there doing things like this. Yes! People, are awesome!

[@arcinterrupter]

I wonder if plants sound different under stress or in distress?

[@cosmicyoke]

yes search up cleve backster experiments

[@burningmatch09]

They do. If you're into Plant Communication, look up Richard Karban and Monica Gagliano.

[@darkstar72488]

Watch the secret life of plants 🌱 documentary and many of your questions will be answered.

[@hijackjoe]

I kinda get where this is going. The plant is like the wind but the digital output is what is actually creating what you hear. You can make those plants sound like anything you want, a dog barking, a baby crying..All with this 'organic' setup, I think people are led to believe those sounds are the ones coming out of the plant which they really aren't. I'm sure plants don't sound like water bowls in melody with each other.

[@antman2826]

+Joel Benoit Spot on! I'm surprised how many people haven't figured this out. Obviously this girl is rather impressed with herself but anyone who knows what they are looking at can see that she is hyping this up to be way more than it is. You could jam those electrodes up your arse and get very much the same effect. What is more is that this has been done before. Nothing new here...

[@guildakriletich]

I went to bed late one night with my window open and I could hear music. I thought the neighbours had their stereo up, however when I put my head out the window I could see they were too far away and their lights were out. However I could still hear the music. There was no singing just instrumental. I tried to depict the instruments but couldnt place any but it was beautiful. It was then that I realised I was listening to the planets and the shumann resonance, resonating from our heavens. Man cannot comprehend this which is the saddest thing about mankind and the obvious unknown. I will never forget it.

[@aditisk99]

Are you a superhuman? How did you hear sounds from planets?

[@AZ-zd6dz]

Interviewer is trying so hard to pick her up.. come on girl! pay attention!

[@dylxnchn]

*ive always had a liking for plants and nature. I even have a bunch of houseplants. Ughhh i love my Monstera deliciosa💕💕*

[@Kat-ow4zf]

Thank you. Wonderful. The is incredible. I have never heard anything like this. I had to share this.

[@bryanmclaughlin1048]

I'll just say... The audio is very well done in this video :)

[@eladgolan1]

Wow. This open up the mind on the ability of technology to connect man with nature. Instead of the traditional use of using technology to escape from it. very inspiring.

[@craigriglin]

Really crazy stuff. I love it! Who knows what this may lead to. I admire the effort. It always so easy to be a cynical critic.

[@youngninja2683]

Dope video im getting into sound design myself and have been interested in doing this!!

[@Luftbubblan]

This was cool. Think ill look in to this abit since i do have a studio and i enjoy growing plants :)

[@virginiapopovic720]

wuauuu demasiado hermoso su trabajo! que ganas de poder hacer musica con sus plantas en ese jardin :)

[@creatrixZBD]

The such ignorant bitchface comments here have prompted me to post... artists often waffle weirdly about their work. sometimes it's a bit coz they're sold on themselves sure, but often it's because the concepts they are exploring are nebulous or are difficult to express in unequivocal terms. She seems really into her art, and more importantly, is bringing it into the world. I really admire that. I also find the expression of her Art really interesting (I know she's not the first to explore this stuff, i couldn't care less), and to place it in a schoolyard context is a great way to inspire and teach young people about plants and nature. Haters...nuthin' but a pack of negators and 'bators.. ;)

[@SlyPark-sq9vd]

Fantastic! Thank you for your wonderful work.

[@EclipseDiscovery]

fantastic, brilliant and inspiring.

[@blackpanelskript6045]

plants are sentient fosho

[@Colourfullauriecake]

This reminds me of the end scene of Funky Forest. Beautiful :).

[@mizpappas]

Refreshing. Wonderful story thank you 😃

[@kentwhoo]

This is absolutely, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful!

[@govindgopaljaiswal8012]

GREAT THOUGHT DEAR.... ALL THE VERY VERY BEST for a Smiling Moments waiting ahead....

[@SpacekatTommy]

Absolutely fascinating. Well done explorers. Well done.

[@kaepsele0711]

Wow, so creative! I'm super inspired rn.

[@brunobailly7013]

Brilliant ! And inspiring !

[@planetxtk7567]

So intelligent. And the beauty in what she did with the plants. Oh my gosh. It reminds me of what the woman on that movie, Contact when she was listening to stars or planets or whatever for life. It was super cool and I wanna do stuff like that and make experimental music. This proves that all humans aren't idiots.

[@planetxtk7567]

Mhm

[@pennyl.8799]

Like a plant theremin! The amplitude response of the plants to their environment is mapped to audio tones.

[@maxbrown7471]

The science, musicology is unbelievably cool. Fantastic. Shame she speaks so pretentiously! ❤️

[@zzh-xn9hx]

Beautiful , those technology to have supported it is so cool.keep it going 🙏☘️🤘📝

[@davonizdashit]

This is some awesome creative stuff right here

[@jina-beautifulrelaxingmusi3078]

Thank you for sharing! 😊

[@maksimilijan5029]

amazing documentary.

[@WATCHVIDEOSDAMNIT]

interesting video. very cool to see someone push a new idea this far. right on.

[@mountainmawmaw863]

how beautiful.

[@judyhuffman4732]

Awesome work Thank you

[@MagicalEliments]

Infinite respect to you Mileece

[@Motherboard]

What if plants could solo. No, not like the singing venus flytrap from Little Shop of Horrors. More like what if plants were given a musical mouth that could act as an instrument to create inimitable soundscapes.

[@dannyhood66]

believe in the air we cannot see, The creator is better

[@biggerthanmost8763]

There is no creator

[@antman2826]

+Motherboard Sorry to burst the bubble Motherboard, but this has been done before and what you are hearing is not the "sound" of the plants. What you are actually hearing is a computer based synthesizer/s being fed an input signal from the plants via the electrodes. You could actually plug those electrodes up your arse and get very much the same effect. I'm surprised that this young woman is claiming to have discovered something new. What's more is that she seems just a little too impressed with herself to the point of extreme cringe worthiness. Anyone who actually knows what they are looking at can see that this is waaaayyyy over hyped and simply not impressive or significant all. This is actually misleading to anyone who doesn't know what they are looking at. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story huh? Lame....

[@bigdoghat3827]

+Ant Man I'm curious about what she's doing, wondering if you know more than posted above.... so the electrode is transmitting a single analog waveform? Or would it but multple waveforms at different frequencies? And then how is that fed to a software synth in Logic do you think? I can't figure out how after the A/D conversion the 1's and 0's can be fed to a software synth to generate notes. You also mentioned this has been done before, would love to hear another example of this if you know?

[@nmsd921]

+Sharon Kearney all you have to do is search for music made by plants and there are a few different videos out there

[@Hoykoy24]

Very cool. Music in a whole other level

[@earthmotherstarchild4462]

loving this video

[@curtiseagleeyemullin]

I noticed that the plant frequencies were interpreted into a specific tonal key. Is there a way that you might assign the entire chromatic spectrum or a harmonic minor key, instead of to only one of the 12 tonal musical keys?

[@bencolemanart]

Yes, this is rife in sonification projects. Why make a plant conform to a western scale, and confine it to a tonal key? Seems very restrictive, not to mention potentially colonialist/anthropocentric.

[@curtiseagleeyemullin]

@@bencolemanart how true your observations are here, in fact I have stoped playing music entirely as I have found it is itself musically restrictive. Life - is its own musical instrument etc. 🎶

[@spookdog2478]

@@curtiseagleeyemullin can we explain like I’m 5?

[@rebeccaerb9935]

I do so love this!!

[@djformalin]

Clever made movie, and interesting info - thx a lot 🎼

[@AJF714]

wow beautiful music!

[@iamconstantlyhungry]

i love this think and sounds typology

[@AnneliisKits]

This is AMAZING!!!!!!!

[@bluorb]

Consciousness is simply being in the present moment. That's all plants do, as they have no ego. They just are, no judgment.

[@ziffinmyreeb2479]

This was rad AF

[@solshields]

AMAZING!

[@newxonearth]

So Very Awesome🌸🌸🌸

[@haronosman4748]

Awesome from plants

[@philg6757]

Soothing.

[@planetxtk7567]

I'm in Mississippi. Im sure theres more to the state but I feel that people like these are so far away. I feel as if I've been living under a tock for such a long time only listening to music and watching funny videos and occasionally educational videos. Glad I put this in my watch later list a long while ago.

[@feudideu]

I think she is in love a bit with this girl...!!

[@F3ARL388]

2:06

[@djformalin]

feudideu .....super relevant 🎼 ( ironic )

[@feudideu]

@@djformalin not relevant and not ironic...

[@djformalin]

feudideu ..... 🎼 .........

[@sharencare2176]

Please come in india, here great and wonderful himalayan range of nature

[@fredgroove]

INCREDIBLE

[@peruface]

very cool stuff

[@Noisey]

In this ep of ​Sound Builders, singer Samantha Urbani meets Mileece, a sound designer who developed technology for sonifying plant life. Meet the Sonic Artist Making Music with Plants: Sound Builders (Episode 2)

[@michaelgoldstein6834]

This is super cool

[@delusionnnnn]

Over 3,000 views, and only one angry voice of pop musical conservatism has uttered the word "hipster". An unvarnished success!

[@GorgonDrageil]

Cool stuff.

[@pako1685]

This research is really original, I wonder if vegetal noise vibrational spectrum emitted by plants could get closer to harmonic frequencies, I mean those frequencies we humans do ear and understand as "music". Maybe dolphins and high evolved big brain mammals appreciate beauty of music as we do. Another subject near to yours is to investigate the effects of "our music" over the growth of plants, but in absorption instead of emission, that is, if harmonic frequencies would interact in cellular plants development, or else. Some hippies believe marijuana plants could grow up better exposed to AC-DC heavy Rock music [LOL]. * well done *, I appreciate you work so much!

[@djjaysunx]

Complete genius

[@imagicstockvideo]

very cool

[@hypnoticmagical4805]

I was waiting on them to start making out. I just woke up. My mind needs to snap out of it and get busy and coffee.

[@JohnFHendry]

5:20 Mass in oscillation....

[@govindgopaljaiswal8012]

Awesome 👍👍👍👍👍

[@polybond3535]

I can't believe how fucking cool this chick is. She makes music AND programs!? Holy shit that's awesome.

[@bolisound]

I will try it.

[@mishadavidgamsu]

i love you both so much

[@amsicos98]

Fantástico...

[@davidbrogan606]

The blond woman is wrong about the sonification being artificial. What wasn't mentioned is that the difference in the plants electric potential at the electrodes is played to the plant in real time. So, the plant learns to make the music. The plant actually plays the electronics creating the sounds. Those sounds are the feedback the plant "hears" in order to learn.

[@carbonladder]

This is possible.

[@jayefran]

So rad

[@ronniet71]

I’m in Love again.

[@christopherpotgieter7515]

cool!

[@clintkimbell8138]

Can you give me tips on how to midi music with the old folks at the old folks home? I think it could be very beneficial

[@licustoms]

I have no idea if the featured guest Mileece reads these responses or not but if she did I have a few questions and thoughts about the use of this work: 1. Would it be feasible to create enough "wireless kits" to connect the worlds different forests (not entirely but parts from each forest) and then have them connect over the Internet for the data transmission from the signals to some main studio with a soundboard/mixer for each of the forests of the world and use this as either a live concert to voice the consciousness of nature of the world to people for the cause of ending deforestation and the cutting and clearing of the forests of the world? (It's just a thought - or else maybe have a live stream radio showcasing the music created from the forests of the world - that too would be spectacular.) 2. Can enough sensors be connected to a large plant that has many bugs/insects crawling all over it to create the sounds? 3. I don't like the cutting of trees (especially forests/rain forests). Could you attach these sensors to a tree and have it sing it's last song as it is being cut down to see what it has to say about this to the people? Maybe this will prove to people that it does matter what is happening to our forests?

[@aaronstately]

It was not clear to me if we where listening to her music/sounds? Was she recording the sound of jungle or of the "electromagnetic" field from the plants?

[@naturetalkspt]

this is a super interesting video.

[@blancemoore]

Grazie mille - Bellisima

[@YVO007]

More plant sounds please

[@CranboonFresh]

Interviewer's like ya thats great plant music hey do you have any coooke?