Good Things Mag is a documentarium series founded by Victoria Stöcker in Monterey, California. Each issue explores a theme through a number of art forms (articles, collage, photography, illustration, essays, poetry, etc). In Issue 2 (June 2017), Victoria gathered several contributors to reflect upon all the things we can learn from plants from a variety of viewpoints, such as the life of the tallest trees on Earth or the first plant harvested and consumed in space. I contributed to the article Plant Music with the collaboration of Victoria and Evan Crankshaw from the Flash Strap blog. In this article, we survey the history of plant music and review the different ways musicians and sound artists have used plants to create music.
Michael Prime, Mileece, Miya Masoaka, Joe Patitucci, Magz Hall, Mort Grason, John Cage, and Roger Roger are a few of the artists included. Plant music practices are divided into generative music by plants, vegetative music by plants, music for plants, and music about plants. The article expands on and updates some of the references featured in Zepelim’s installment, Plant Consciousness and Communication.
Good Things We Learn From Plants is a beautifully curated magazine full of gems about plant life and plant-related art. You can order a copy here or visit Victoria Stöcker’s page here.
