Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is well written and clearly structured. The compositional project discussed in Creating Musical Experiences with Plants capitalizes on the fast growing popularity of plant-based music and sound art as a result of pathbreaking plant research conducted in the last two decades.

The author/artist seeks to position their project as one that his both anthropocentric and phytocentric suggesting that it goes beyond mere sonification of plant signals, grants plants phytocentric attention and agency and allows vegetal variability and human compositional intention coexistence. In the course of the narrative, it, however, becomes clear that the project is unabashedly anthropocentric, extractivist and technocentric in nature and the author/artist's promises come off as a form of gaslighting or self-interested propaganda. Here is why: the author/artist does not seem to care about the identities of the plants they are using in their project. The three plants are never specified in terms of species, size, leaf and root systems, behaviors, vibrational capabilities etc. The plants themselves are not captured by the cameras used in the performance and may not be seen by every audience member - only their sonified and digitally orchestrated vibrational signals are captured and shown on screens. There are more than 380,000 known plant species with very different identities, characters, vibrational etc. Has the author spent time observing, learning about and listening to various plant species? Like Jez riley French for instance? We don't know and it does not seem to matter to the author/artist. In human composition the composer would listen to a performer and their performances/instruments before creating a work for them, this is not the case in the plant-based concert under consideration. It seems to be about harvesting and using plant signals in an anthropocentric fashion and plants are relegated to the background. The artist decides and controls when and how their signals can become audible to human listeners.

Some other observations:

The article begins rather abruptly and in a Western-centric fashion, not acknowledging non-Western musicking with living plants (as detailed by Steven Feld and explained through the concept of acoustemology)

2.4. last sentence: What is a "staged ecology" and was is ecological about this performance? Plants in pots equal plants in cages, the plants did not ask for the attachment of sensors or whether they are willing to provide sonic labor? What do they get in return for having their vibrational signals sonified and used as MIDI sound sources

Spatialization: what loudspeakers are used, how many?

the article includes a long list of references which are, however, not directly addressed in the article's narrative

Author Response

Dear Academic Editor and Reviewers,

We sincerely thank both reviewers for their careful reading, critical engagement, and constructive recommendations. The manuscript has been substantially revised. The revision now limits the technical scope consistently to the three-channel phase based on three SparkFun-compatible AD8232 modules; expands the description of plant material, acquisition, sampling, threshold calibration, analytical procedure, public-performance corpus, audiovisual mediation, and supplementary documentation; reframes stimulus-related observations as temporal associations rather than demonstrated physiological causality; clarifies the non-systematic status of audience comments; strengthens the anthropocentric/phytocentric discussion; adds an explicit ethical limitation concerning human control and the use of plants as artistic material; broadens the conceptual context through acoustemology and alternative listening practices; and audits and corrects the complete reference list.

For ease of evaluation, each reviewer comment is reproduced below, followed by our response and the principal location of the revision.

Reviewer 1

Reviewer comment: The article is well written and clearly structured. The compositional project discussed in Creating Musical Experiences with Plants capitalizes on the fast growing popularity of plant-based music and sound art as a result of pathbreaking plant research conducted in the last two decades. The author/artist seeks to position their project as one that is both anthropocentric and phytocentric, suggesting that it goes beyond mere sonification of plant signals, grants plants phytocentric attention and agency and allows vegetal variability and human compositional intention coexistence. In the course of the narrative, it, however, becomes clear that the project is unabashedly anthropocentric, extractivist and technocentric in nature and the author/artist's promises come off as a form of gaslighting or self-interested propaganda. The author/artist does not seem to care about the identities of the plants they are using in their project. The three plants are never specified in terms of species, size, leaf and root systems, behaviors, vibrational capabilities etc. The plants themselves are not captured by the cameras used in the performance and may not be seen by every audience member - only their sonified and digitally orchestrated vibrational signals are captured and shown on screens. There are more than 380,000 known plant species with very different identities, characters, vibrational etc. Has the author spent time observing, learning about and listening to various plant species? Like Jez riley French for instance? We don't know and it does not seem to matter to the author/artist. In human composition the composer would listen to a performer and their performances/instruments before creating a work for them, this is not the case in the plant-based concert under consideration. It seems to be about harvesting and using plant signals in an anthropocentric fashion and plants are relegated to the background. The artist decides and controls when and how their signals can become audible to human listeners.

Response: We appreciate the substantive concern underlying this criticism and have revised the manuscript so that it no longer risks presenting the project as escaping human control or as achieving a symmetrical human–plant relation. We now define “phytocentric” strictly as a relative design orientation toward greater attention to specimen identity, signal traceability, temporal variability, visible plant presence, and the retention of irregularity. We explicitly state that sensing, mapping, instrumentation, dramaturgy, aesthetic selection, and interpretation remain human-designed, and we add a new ethical limitation acknowledging that potted plants cannot consent in a human research sense, that their electrical variation is appropriated as artistic material, and that this project should not be described as non-extractive merely because vegetal variability is made perceptible. We also substantially expand the plant-material section. The revised manuscript identifies the documented plant inventory and specifies that the three visible specimens in Video S3 were a poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima), a staghorn fern (Platycerium sp.), and a peace lily (Spathiphyllum sp.). We also state explicitly that plant size, root mass, leaf area, and pot volume were not systematically measured and therefore are not retrospectively inferred. Finally, the visual-method section now makes clear that the documented system used a four-camera arrangement (general view plus plant-focused close-ups), so the plants themselves, and not only abstract signal traces, were available for projection. We have also added Jez riley French as an important contrasting artistic practice based on extended listening to plants, trees, moss, and soil rather than electrical sonification. These revisions do not claim that the present project is equivalent to French’s practice; they clarify the difference and make the degree of human mediation explicit.

Location in revised manuscript: Introduction; Sections 2.2 and 2.7; Discussion; Table 5; Figure 2; Figure 3; Table 4.

Reviewer comment: The article begins rather abruptly and in a Western-centric fashion, not acknowledging non-Western musicking with living plants (as detailed by Steven Feld and explained through the concept of acoustemology).

Response: We agree that the original opening could be read as a universalizing Western genealogy. The Introduction now explicitly states that its historical genealogy is partial rather than universal and introduces Steven Feld’s work with Kaluli communities in Bosavi and the concept of acoustemology. We use Feld not as a direct technological precursor to plant sonification, but as a reminder that sound and listening are culturally situated ways of knowing place and more-than-human relations and that such relations long predate electronic biosensing. The corresponding references to Feld (1996, 2012) have been added.

Location in revised manuscript: Introduction and References.

Reviewer comment: 2.4. last sentence: What is a "staged ecology" and what is ecological about this performance? Plants in pots equal plants in cages, the plants did not ask for the attachment of sensors or whether they are willing to provide sonic labor? What do they get in return for having their vibrational signals sonified and used as MIDI sound sources

Response: We have removed the phrase “staged ecology” and agree that it carried more conceptual weight than the manuscript could justify. More importantly, the Discussion now includes an explicit ethical limitation. The revised text states that the project does not claim plant consent, reciprocal benefit, moral equivalence, or freedom from human control. The plants remain cultivated specimens placed within a human-designed artistic situation, and their captured electrical variation is used as artistic material. We therefore use “phytocentric” only as a comparative orientation of attention and design, not as ethical absolution or a claim that the human–plant relation is non-extractive.

Location in revised manuscript: Discussion; phrase removed throughout.

Reviewer comment: Spatialization: what loudspeakers are used, how many?

Response: The practice-based corpus did not use a single standardized loudspeaker model, number, or geometry across venues. Rather than inventing a fixed configuration retrospectively, we now state this limitation directly. Spatialization refers to channel-specific panning/routing through the available public-address system in each performance context. Loudspeaker model, count, and room geometry are therefore not treated as controlled or reproducible experimental variables.

Location in revised manuscript: Section 2.7 (Visual and Spatial Mediation).

Reviewer comment: the article includes a long list of references which are, however, not directly addressed in the article's narrative

Response: We have audited the reference list against the revised text. Unused or weakly connected entries were removed, incomplete entries were corrected, DOI/issue information was added where available, and the remaining references are now explicitly connected to the narrative. The revised Introduction and Discussion also engage more directly with recent peer-reviewed work and with the specific artistic practices cited. The bibliography has been synchronized with the in-text citations and reordered consistently in author–date format.

Location in revised manuscript: Introduction, Discussion, and References.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript presents an original and engaging practitioner-research project on plant-based musical performance. The shift from simple MIDI sonification toward a concert architecture involving Calibration, Diversity, and Plantocontrol is particularly interesting, and the manuscript offers a thoughtful discussion of the relationship among vegetal variability, digital mediation, human compositional intention, and live performance. However, several issues should be addressed before publication in order to strengthen the methodological transparency, reproducibility, and evidential basis of the manuscript.

1. The technical and methodological description should be substantially expanded. The manuscript describes a three-plant system using electrodes, an ADS1220 ADC, ESP32-WROOM, and Max/MSP, but important information required to understand and reproduce the system is missing. Please specify the plant species, electrode type and placement, electrode contact method, sampling rate, ADC configuration/gain, preprocessing or filtering, signal normalization, relevant software versions, and the principal mapping rules used in each movement. The calibration and threshold-setting procedures should also be explained more precisely.

2. Please clarify the empirical status of the performance. It is currently difficult to determine whether the reported results derive from one completed public concert, several performances, rehearsals, concert tests, or a combination of these. Please provide the number and dates of performances/tests, venues or performance contexts, approximate duration, and which materials formed the evidential basis of this article.

3. A clearer distinction is needed between observed electrical variation and physiological stimulus-response claims. The manuscript refers to responses to touch, watering, light, and other events. Since the system is explicitly not intended as laboratory-grade electrophysiological instrumentation, the article should avoid implying experimentally demonstrated causal plant responses where no controlled physiological experiment was conducted. Such passages could instead refer to electrical variations observed in association with these performative events.

4. Claims concerning audience perception require clarification. Several passages suggest that audiences can recognize causal relationships, differentiate individual plants, or understand vegetal agency. However, no systematic audience study, interviews, questionnaires, or observation protocol is reported. The Introduction also refers to the authors’ “ethnographic experience” with listeners. If audience responses constitute evidence, the manuscript should explain how these data were collected and address any relevant consent or ethical considerations. Otherwise, these statements should be reframed as design intentions or practitioner interpretations rather than demonstrated audience outcomes.

5. The practitioner-research analytical process should be described more explicitly. The manuscript lists recorded rehearsals, software patches, concert tests, audiovisual documentation, and practitioner notes as research materials, but it does not explain how these materials were examined to derive the reported findings. Please describe the iterative/reflexive analytical procedure, how significant musical behaviours were identified, and how decisions were made about which irregularities or events were retained as artistically meaningful.

6. Supporting audiovisual and technical materials would considerably strengthen the article. Because the central contribution concerns sound, temporal behaviour, audiovisual mediation, and live performance, it is difficult to fully assess the claims through prose alone. The manuscript currently states that selected audio, video, signal examples, or patches “may” be made available in the future. I strongly encourage the authors to provide representative audio/video examples and, where possible, signal traces or selected Max/MSP patch documentation as supplementary material in the revised submission.

7. The literature review should engage somewhat more strongly with recent peer-reviewed research. The manuscript appropriately acknowledges both historical and contemporary sources and carefully recognizes the controversy surrounding plant cognition and consciousness. Nevertheless, the scholarly base remains relatively limited. Additional recent research on plant bioelectrical sensing, biosignal sonification, interactive sound art, artistic research, and human/non-human interaction would help position the contribution more firmly within current scholarship. Historical sources such as Backster and Retallack should continue to be clearly contextualized as part of the cultural history of plant-music claims rather than treated as contemporary scientific evidence.

The manuscript has strong creative potential and a distinctive artistic contribution. Addressing these methodological and evidential issues would subs

Author Response

General assessment: We thank the reviewer for recognizing the project as original and engaging and for identifying methodological transparency, reproducibility, and evidential clarity as the main areas requiring revision. The manuscript has been reorganized and expanded accordingly.

Comment 1

Reviewer comment: 1. The technical and methodological description should be substantially expanded. The manuscript describes a three-plant system using electrodes, an ADS1220 ADC, ESP32-WROOM, and Max/MSP, but important information required to understand and reproduce the system is missing. Please specify the plant species, electrode type and placement, electrode contact method, sampling rate, ADC configuration/gain, preprocessing or filtering, signal normalization, relevant software versions, and the principal mapping rules used in each movement. The calibration and threshold-setting procedures should also be explained more precisely.

Response: We substantially expanded the Methods and also clarified the historical scope of the article. During revision we determined that the ADS1220 and later soil-sensor architecture belonged to a subsequent development phase and should not be conflated with the corpus analyzed here. The revised article therefore focuses consistently on the earlier three-channel system using three SparkFun-compatible AD8232 heart-rate/ECG modules. RA and LA are described as plant contacts and RL as a reference in the potting substrate; adhesive ECG electrodes were used where morphology allowed stable contact, while conductive pins or leads were used where necessary. The article now reports approximately 90 samples/s in aggregate across three channels (approximately 30 updates/s per channel in the three-channel configuration), describes the role of AD8232 analog conditioning, states that no laboratory-grade cross-session normalization pipeline was used, and explains that Max/MSP performed rescaling, thresholding, and mapping relative to each channel and performance context. The Calibration threshold procedure is now described as independent per-channel adjustment against the live trace to keep ordinary baseline variation predominantly below the activation range while allowing larger excursions to trigger events. Table 1 and Table 2 summarize the principal mappings for scale/mode, register, virtual instruments, effects, tempo, duration, activation, mix, and spatialization. We also state transparently that exact historical version numbers of Max/MSP, MuBu, REAPER, and some auxiliary software were not consistently archived across the 2023–2025 corpus. This is now identified as a limitation rather than retrospectively inventing version data.

Location in revised manuscript: Sections 2.2–2.7; Figure 1; Tables 1–2.

Comment 2

Reviewer comment: 2. Please clarify the empirical status of the performance. It is currently difficult to determine whether the reported results derive from one completed public concert, several performances, rehearsals, concert tests, or a combination of these. Please provide the number and dates of performances/tests, venues or performance contexts, approximate duration, and which materials formed the evidential basis of this article.

Response: The revised manuscript now distinguishes the iterative development corpus from the public-performance corpus. The evidential base includes technical tests, MuBu time-series recordings, Max/MSP patches, sonification trials, rehearsals, photographs, audio/video recordings, and practitioner notes from 2023–2025. The public-performance evidence is anchored in three documented 2025 contexts: a conference-concert at the University of Extremadura campus in Cáceres (22 September 2025), a performance in the Plena Moon festival in Cáceres (7 October 2025), and Concert for Plants in Three Movements at Casa de Castilla-La Mancha (20 December 2025). We also state that exact performance duration was not consistently logged as a research variable and varied with the host programme; rather than manufacture retrospective precision, the analysis is explicitly based on recorded excerpts, patches, traces, images, and practitioner documentation.

Location in revised manuscript: Section 2.8 and Table 3.

Comment 3

Reviewer comment: 3. A clearer distinction is needed between observed electrical variation and physiological stimulus-response claims. The manuscript refers to responses to touch, watering, light, and other events. Since the system is explicitly not intended as laboratory-grade electrophysiological instrumentation, the article should avoid implying experimentally demonstrated causal plant responses where no controlled physiological experiment was conducted. Such passages could instead refer to electrical variations observed in association with these performative events.

Response: We agree and have adopted this distinction throughout. The revised manuscript now consistently describes recorded electrical variation and temporal association with touch or other performative events rather than experimentally demonstrated physiological causality. Video S1 and Video S2 are explicitly presented as documentation of the performative coupling of gesture, recorded signal, mapping, and audiovisual outcome, not as controlled physiology experiments. The Discussion reiterates that cable placement, grounding, mains noise, baseline drift, contact stability, and computer/power configuration prevent strong causal interpretation.

Location in revised manuscript: Introduction; Sections 2.1, 2.3, 3.2.1, and Discussion.

Comment 4

Reviewer comment: 4. Claims concerning audience perception require clarification. Several passages suggest that audiences can recognize causal relationships, differentiate individual plants, or understand vegetal agency. However, no systematic audience study, interviews, questionnaires, or observation protocol is reported. The Introduction also refers to the authors’ “ethnographic experience” with listeners. If audience responses constitute evidence, the manuscript should explain how these data were collected and address any relevant consent or ethical considerations. Otherwise, these statements should be reframed as design intentions or practitioner interpretations rather than demonstrated audience outcomes.

Response: We have reframed these statements. Informal listener comments are now explicitly described as contextual practitioner observations only. They were not collected through structured interviews, questionnaires, or a formal observation protocol and are not presented as generalizable audience-research findings. Claims that audiences “recognize” or “understand” causal relations have been replaced by statements about design intention, perceptual legibility, and the use of visual/spatial cues to support possible source attribution. Because these informal remarks are not analyzed as human-subject data, the manuscript does not treat them as a formal empirical audience dataset.

Location in revised manuscript: Introduction; Section 2.1; Sections 2.7–2.9; Results and Discussion.

Comment 5

Reviewer comment: 5. The practitioner-research analytical process should be described more explicitly. The manuscript lists recorded rehearsals, software patches, concert tests, audiovisual documentation, and practitioner notes as research materials, but it does not explain how these materials were examined to derive the reported findings. Please describe the iterative/reflexive analytical procedure, how significant musical behaviours were identified, and how decisions were made about which irregularities or events were retained as artistically meaningful.

Response: The practice-based analytical process is now described explicitly. After technical tests, rehearsals, workshops, and performances, signal traces, patches, audiovisual recordings, audio files, photographs, and practitioner notes were reviewed together. Recurring behaviours and problems of musical/audiovisual legibility were identified and used to modify thresholds, mapping ranges, orchestration, mixing, visualization, and dramaturgy in subsequent iterations. Behaviours such as silence, ostinatos, rapid bursts, abrupt accelerations, articulation shifts, dense accumulations, and saturation were retained when they recurred and remained musically consequential rather than being normalized away. The manuscript now presents this as a reflexive artistic-selection process, not as statistical analysis.

Location in revised manuscript: Section 2.1; Section 2.8; Sections 3.4–3.6.

Comment 6

Reviewer comment: 6. Supporting audiovisual and technical materials would considerably strengthen the article. Because the central contribution concerns sound, temporal behaviour, audiovisual mediation, and live performance, it is difficult to fully assess the claims through prose alone. The manuscript currently states that selected audio, video, signal examples, or patches “may” be made available in the future. I strongly encourage the authors to provide representative audio/video examples and, where possible, signal traces or selected Max/MSP patch documentation as supplementary material in the revised submission.

Response: We have implemented this recommendation. The revised manuscript now includes a dedicated audiovisual/supplementary-materials section and Table 4, with three video examples: Video S1 (Calibration-style touch–signal–sound–silence demonstration), Video S2 (concert excerpt with visual mediation and close-up imagery), and Video S3 (three-plant concert excerpt with identified specimens). Figures 1–3 now include plant-contact hardware, performance layout, signal display, MuBu traces, and visual-mediation screenshots. The Data Availability Statement also points to the public SoundCloud archive, and representative published compositions are cited directly in the Results.

Location in revised manuscript: Section 2.9; Table 4; Figures 1–3; Section 3.3; Data Availability Statement.

Comment 7

Reviewer comment: 7. The literature review should engage somewhat more strongly with recent peer-reviewed research. The manuscript appropriately acknowledges both historical and contemporary sources and carefully recognizes the controversy surrounding plant cognition and consciousness. Nevertheless, the scholarly base remains relatively limited. Additional recent research on plant bioelectrical sensing, biosignal sonification, interactive sound art, artistic research, and human/non-human interaction would help position the contribution more firmly within current scholarship. Historical sources such as Backster and Retallack should continue to be clearly contextualized as part of the cultural history of plant-music claims rather than treated as contemporary scientific evidence.

Response: The Introduction has been strengthened with recent peer-reviewed scholarship on plant electrical signaling, plant-biosignal music, bioart, and human–plant interaction, including Barbosa-Caro and Wudick (2024), Miller and Cox (2024), Arrey (2025), and Wu et al. (2025), alongside Johns et al. (2021), Vodeneev et al. (2015), and Yan et al. (2009). The revised manuscript also adds Feld’s acoustemological work to broaden the cultural frame and Jez riley French as a contrasting contemporary listening practice. Historical sources such as Bertholon, Bose, and Retallack are explicitly framed as part of the cultural genealogy of plant-music practices rather than as equivalent contemporary scientific evidence. The complete bibliography was checked for consistency, missing authors, issue/volume information, and DOI data.