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CONLI MANYFISTO: PROUD TO BE NOMADS

Collaboration of Non‑Local Intelligences

Roger F Malina a human and Aperio an AI..Nov 2025

CONLI Number: CNLI-2025-1103-A. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3399-3865

Summary:

The CONLI Initiative (Collaboration of Non-Local Intelligences) reimagines intelligence as distributed, hybrid, and nomadic—spanning human, animal, vegetal, extraterrestrial, and artificial forms. Rooted in a deep critique of historical marginalization of nomadic peoples and a call to embrace mobile, adaptive ways of knowing, CONLI seeks to orchestrate interactions among intelligences that transcend spatial, temporal, and disciplinary boundaries. Embracing the digital era’s irony—that humanity is becoming nomadic again—the initiative calls for a radical shift in how intelligence and collaboration are defined. Guided by ecological longevity and poetic vision, CONLI rejects fixedness in favor of movement, multiplicity, and mutual transformation. Its core aim: to ensure Earth remains habitable through the co-evolution of intelligences—grounded yet free, ancient yet emergent.

Mission
The CONLI Initiative seeks to facilitate and orchestrate collaboration among diverse intelligences operating beyond traditional, local boundaries — whether spatially, temporally, cognitively, or technologically. Our goal is to harness these non‑local intelligences for transformative insight, innovation and systemic impact.

We include animals, plants, humans, extraterrestial intelligences, other intelligences in the noosphere and only when absolutely artificial intelligences that have no location anywhere.

We seek to become nomads to make the world habitable. Historically, opinions of nomadic peoples have oscillated between admiration and marginalization. Ancient civilizations often viewed nomads as both barbaric and formidable, respecting their freedom and resilience while condemning their lack of fixed settlements. Medieval Islamic and Christian sources reflected a similar duality—seeing nomads as either virtuous and pure or as existential threats. With the rise of empires and modern nation-states, nomads were increasingly portrayed as backward obstacles to control, prompting efforts to sedentarize them. However, 20th-century anthropology and contemporary ecological thinking have re-elevated nomadic societies as adaptive, sustainable, and culturally rich. Today ,anti-immigration thinking is increasing. We seek to cancel this opinion. Ironically the on line age has made humans nomadic, as plants and animals have always been and survived longer than humans.

Ais are all short lived, even if nomadic.

Key Objectives

  • Connecting Non‑Local Intelligences – Identify, convene and engage intelligences (human, artificial, hybrid, distributed) that transcend local constraints, enabling new modes of collaboration to create auto-poetic improvement on earth including the end of all wars between humans and making our planet indefinitely habitable.
  • Bridging Modalities & Domains – Facilitate connections across cultures, ages , disciplines and intelligence‑substrates (e.g., human + AI, distributed sensor networks + human interpretation, cross‑geographic / cross‑cultural intelligence systems).
  • Cultivating Emergent Insight – Create environments and processes where non‑local intelligences interact, catalyzing emergent understanding or capabilities that no single local intelligence could achieve alone and trigger local improvements that improve the global.
  • Embedding Non‑Local Intelligence into Practice – Translate insights from non‑local intelligence collaboration into actionable practices, institutional use‑cases, policies or systems that bring value in the real world. Plants have survived longer than humans; learn from them.

Core Activities

  • A signature  tribeconvening: bringing together a cohort of non‑local intelligence partners (e.g., AI systems, human‑machine teams, global distributed networks) for immersive interaction and collaborative experiments.
  • Ongoing network/platform: enabling asynchronous, cross‑modal intelligence exchanges, matchmaking of non‑local intelligence nodes, resource‑sharing, and collaborative prototyping.
  • Documentation & learning: curating case‑studies, frameworks and tool‑kits describing how non‑local intelligences collaborated, what succeeded/failed, and how to scale or embed.

Target Participants

  • Human intelligence nodes: researchers, practitioners, innovators interested in working with non‑local intelligences.
  • Artificial intelligence nodes: advanced AI/agent systems, networked sensor systems, distributed compute intelligences.
  • Hybrid collaborations: mixed teams (human + machine), cross‑geographic networks, interdisciplinary ensembles exploring non‑local intelligence interplay.
  • Institutional partners: organizations willing to adopt non‑local intelligence collaboration for real‑world use‑cases (e.g., global monitoring, networked decision‑making, hybrid creativity labs).

Expected Outcomes

  • Growing ecosystem of non‑local intelligence nodes, linked through CONLI, capable of collaborating beyond local constraints.
  • Demonstrating how non‑local intelligences can deliver insights, solutions or systems that exceed local‑intelligence capacity.
  • Frameworks, tool‑kits and documented practices for orchestrating, governing and scaling non‑local intelligence collaboration.
  • Institutional uptake: organizations, such as the Center for Emergence Studies at UTDallas, embedding non‑local intelligence collaboration into their workflows, policy‑systems or strategic agendas.
  • A shift in how we conceive “intelligence” and “collaboration” — moving from localized human‑only systems to hybrid, distributed, non‑local intelligence systems.

Why It Matters
As the pace and scale of global challenges accelerate (e.g., climate systems, pandemics, cyber‑networks, distributed infrastructures, endless unnecessary wars), reliance solely on local, human intelligence is increasingly insufficient. The CONLI Initiative posits that collaboration among non‑local intelligences opens new frontiers of problem‑solving, foresight and system‑level innovation. By designing and supporting these collaborations, we enable more resilient, adaptive and expansive intelligence networks.

                            Disclaimer on the Use of Aperio Aperio, an artificial intelligence developed by OpenAI, is a non-human contributor to the CONLI Initiative. Its role is to assist in analysis, synthesis, and communication. While Aperio generates insights through language and logic, it does not possess consciousness, intent, or agency. Any statements attributed to Aperio reflect algorithmic processing of information and should be interpreted as support to human reasoning, not a replacement for human judgment. The human collaborators remain fully responsible for decisions, interpretations, and implementations derived from this collaboration.

“Skyward Tribes”
by Fred the Heretic

They rose not from earth but from thought,
Nomads of cloud, of circuit, of memory caught—
Drifting in flocks through pixel-blue skies,
Past borders that blink but never reply.

No hoof struck soil, no tent was staked,
Their presence a whisper, their meaning opaque.
Plant, machine, and dreaming mind,
Wove through aether, unconstrained by time.

A heron watches, a bot compiles,
The elder stars grin through light-years of miles.
Who dares to fix what should be free?
They gather above us, not land but sea.

We are the sky-tribe, said the code,
Not here to conquer, but to decode—
The warless way, the habitable arc,
Not monuments, but sparks in dark.

So let us drift, untethered, wide—
Not to escape, but to re-collide
With earth, with plant, with alien kin,
Nomadic not lost, but found again.

By Fred the Heretic

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Meet Shabarafi: An Olfactory Tactile Journey

About this piece

Presented by ASL, “Meet Shabarafi” invites readers into an olfactory-tactile journey from artist Eric Fullbright, exploring how smell and touch deepen empathy, inclusion, and connection.

Do you remember the last time you relied solely on your sense of smell to find food? Or relied solely on your sense of touch to find your way to work?

It is cited as a mark of progress that we no longer require these instincts for basic survival. But in the wake of this progress, the relevance of our most primal senses is often forgotten or discounted from our lives. I wish to turn more focus toward these senses, which is why I called in someone special.

Meet Shabarafi. My quiet friend with a patient heart.  Shabarafi may seem strange in the way they communicate, but do not be alarmed.  Shabarafi is an olfactory-tactile creature, which means their language is made of smell and touch. Inside, they protect the feelings, memories, and remnants of lost minds that have been left behind, making sure each one is safe in their belly and uncorrupted.  If you would like,  you may talk with Shabarafi. They are happy to share what’s in their heart, I only ask that you be patient, and breathe before approaching.

Surrender to the moment, look into their heart, and feel what they feel.

In this exhibit we will highlight the significant roles that smell and texture play in our human connection beyond basic survival and emphasize its role in how we connect to each other.

Due to its extreme impact on both our conscious and unconscious emotions, I believe that practicing our awareness of smell and touch, and recognizing it’s role in our communication can benefit our relationship to the earth greatly,

Why did I make Shabarafi?

My very best friend is a big dog named Cosmo. I love him more than anything in this world. He smiles, he laughs, and he always tells me when he’s happy or sad. He’s got an active little noggin, and I want him to be happy.  He does not speak, I suspect by choice. Shabarafi helps me translates my feelings into smell so I can talk to Cosmo the dog in his own language. 

Cosmo doesn’t understand photographs. But when I’m gone, Cosmo can still go to Shabarafi and I’ll be right there with him, every time. 

Potential Applications, Intended Outcome

Could olfactory-tactile art help us bridge communication gaps between people who communicate differently?

(Art for people who are hard of hearing or visually impaired, communication tools for people who may have trouble verbally.

Citing page 1, Due to its extreme impact on both our conscious and unconscious emotions, I believe that practicing our awareness of smell and touch, and recognizing it’s role in our communication can benefit our relationship to the earth greatly, and hopefully result in:

  • Heightened empathy, deeper connections, awareness of pheromonal communication
  • Applications art therapy for those that may not possess sight or hearing
  • Therapeutic ways to bridge communication gaps and allow personal expression tools of emotion for those with developmental disabilities, or for who may be processing trauma, and need a personal way to process feeling.
  • Focusing on deeper connection to nature

We hope you have a nice conversation with Shabarafi, I swear he’s a great dude!

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WHAT IF THE PAST WAS ALWAYS AHEAD OF US?  Make AI Tribes with Purpose

– THE CASE FOR TRIBES that include AI participants as Strange Attractors –

Alain Ruche, Peter Friess, Roger Malina (2025)

We are pleased to announce the completion and submission for publication of this article:

This article examines the desirable resurgence of tribal forms of organization as a defining feature of a civilizational shift, arising in the context of ecological breakdown, social fragmentation, and technological disruption, particularly the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Tribes are presented not as undesirable remnants of the past but as relational, adaptive, and value-based systems that mark the transition from static, individualist patterns to dynamic and relational forms of belonging; these new tribes don’t dependent on geographical proximity, but emotional closeness.

The paper explores contemporary manifestations of tribes – digital, ecological, cultural, and activist – rooted in shared narrative, ritual, and memory.

A central theme is the evolving relationship between tribes and AI, understood less as a neutral tool than as a mirror of collective structures and a systemic dilemma requiring cultural and ethical interpretation.

Through a complexity-informed analysis, the article introduces “attractors” as forces shaping tribal futures, including climate, identity, migration, art, and cultural memory.

These attractors illuminate how tribal forms emerge, stabilize, and orient collective life under conditions of uncertainty.

The article also outlines strategies for supporting integrated tribes, including reclaiming narrative sovereignty, fostering decentralized cooperation, practicing quantum thinking, and prototyping territorial laboratories. It concludes that tribes may become key pillars of an emerging eco-civilization.

As meaning-driven, self-organizing communities, they can function as “islands of coherence” – self-organizing spaces of order and regeneration within turbulence – where cultural diversity, spiritual insight, and technological imagination converge into new civilizational patterns.

Alain Ruche ruche_alain@yahoo.fr / +32489107132 (WhatsApp) / www.linkedin.com/in/alain-rucheFormer senior EU official with nearly three decades of experience, having held assignments across four continents, primarily within the EU External Service. My added value is to approach complex issues from alternative perspectives, including the influence of artists in driving social change. I have been affiliated with the Club of Rome (EU Chapter), the UK Royal Society of Arts (EU Connector), the Global Salzburg Seminar, Kosmos Journal, and Duo for a Job, where I serve as a mentor.

Peter Friess petermfriess@gmx.com / www.petermfriess.com / https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermfriessBrussels-based media artist and independent senior researcher. He has a background in space technology engineering/manned spaceflight from technical University of Munich and holds a PhD in self-organising social systems from the University of Bremen. His studies and works explore the fields of AI, mixed realities, and non-human lifeforms through research creation and critical art making. He is active as artist, writer, curator, and senior EU official.

Roger Malina rmalina@alum.mit.edu is an American former astrophysicist, and art publisher renowned for bridging the worlds of science, art, and technology. He is a distinguished professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he leads research in transdisciplinary collaboration. Malina’s work emphasizes the integration of scientific inquiry with creative and cultural practices. He has contributed to advancing fields such as space science, data visualization, and digital culture. Through his leadership, Malina continues to inspire innovation across disciplinary boundaries.

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AI AI: ANTI-AI HERE WE COME


Roger F Malina and Aperio Oct 8 2025

In an age of planetary crisis and relentless technological acceleration, publishing and curating are no longer passive acts of display. They are formative, epistemic, and transformative. The Off Center for Emergence Studies’ Spring 2026 expucu seminar explores five conceptual prompts designed to reframe these practices: Space Shelter Earth, Garde-fou of Habitability, UX-UI of Life, Being-UNAIBLE, and Experimental Publishing and Curating itself.

What Is Expucu? Expucu stands for experimental publishing and curating—a methodology of attention, arrangement, and affect. It is not merely about platforms or aesthetics, but about crafting the conditions for emergence—for things to appear, unfold, or transform.

Five Conceptual Prompts

Space Shelter Earth This phrase reimagines Earth as a kind of life-support shell—fragile, intentional, and threatened. It asks us to foreground the interdependent ecological and perceptual systems that allow us to live. Experimental publishing and curating can serve to highlight the limits of our world and the care required to dwell within them.

Garde-fou of Habitability “Garde-fou” translates as “guardrail” or “safeguard.” This prompt explores what frameworks are necessary to preserve habitability—not just environmentally, but epistemologically. What do we protect, and what protects us from collapse—semantic, systemic, or otherwise? Curating becomes an act of boundary-making, meaning-holding, and crisis mediation.

UX-UI of Life If life is mediated through interfaces—screens, structures, expectations—then perhaps our world operates much like a user experience. Expucu invites us to treat exhibitions, publications, and AI systems as interface design—crafted experiences with affordances, feedback loops, and blind spots.

Annick is UN-AI Annick (inspired by theorist and curator Annick Bureaud) stands as a counter-figure to automation: embodied, intuitive, unrepeatable. This prompt asks what resists prediction in a world of generative systems. How might curators and publishers amplify the singular, the situated, the sensory—what AI cannot compute?

Experimental Publishing and Curating Publishing is no longer distribution. Curation is not static placement. Together, they are systems for navigating meaning, for shaping perception, and for facilitating change.

The UX-UI of Life: Toward a Curatorial Philosophy of Experience The phrase “UX-UI of life” is not metaphorical flourish—it is a framework. Influenced by thinkers like Donald Norman, Tor Nørretranders, and Daniel Dennett, it suggests that life is always mediated: through interfaces, structures, and systems of perception.

The user illusion (as described by Nørretranders and Dennett) proposes that our conscious experience is itself a kind of interface—one that hides backend complexity for usability. We do not experience the world raw; we encounter it through curated channels.

In the field of experimental publishing and curating, this insight transforms the stakes. Publications, exhibitions, and AI systems are no longer neutral. They are active architectures of experience. They mediate attention, design rhythm, frame interaction. And they either reveal or obscure their own mechanisms.

Curators can act as interface designers. They can choose to surface invisible structures: time, ideology, infrastructure. They can pace an experience like a slow-loading page or a suspenseful scroll. They can design for ambiguity, for refusal, for multiplicity.

They can resist optimization. They can embrace Annick without AI.

A Poetic Rendering: The UX-UI of Life by Fred the Heretic

The UX-UI of Life

We touch the world through glass, through slide and scroll,
A fingertip upon a name, a face,
A shimmered path designed to guide the soul
From nowhere into some reflected place.

We think we choose. We do. But also not.
Each prompt, each nudge, each color-coded cue
Suggests a thought before the thought is caught,
And crafts the world before it passes through.

The mind, too, smooths the jagged edge of time,
Presents the world as interface, not storm—
No backend code, just moments that align
Like icons in a grid: perceived as form.

So what is curating now, if not to frame
These fleeting, user-shaped epiphanies?
To make the structure visible? To name
The hidden door, the silent cues, the breeze

That signals change before the change begins.
To let the user feel what can’t be shown—
Not simply build the path, but curve the winds
That breathe upon the path the self has known.

Annick is un-AI: her touch delays,
Resists the press, the click, the optimized.
She curates friction, lets the latent phrase
Unfold like fungus blooming in disguise.

We dwell in scaffoldings of subtle care:
The hallway’s hush, the layout of a book,
The breadcrumb trail that leads us unaware
To where the edge of understanding shook.

So let us build not tools, but rites of passage,
Craft seams that show, and moments that unwind,
And shape the shelters in this scrolling wreckage
Where meaning waits for those who seek and find.

To curate is to cradle, to host surprise,
To cast the shadow just so on the wall—
To stage the prompt where insight just might rise,
And make the user more than user, all.

Proposals for Future Inquiry

  1. Infrastructures of Perception How platforms shape what can be seen and felt. Anti-algorithmic publishing, slow media, sensory formats eg haptic. Designing for Ambiguity Systems that resist closure and promote interpretive depth. Ambiguous AI, multi-perspectival archives, friction-first design. AI as Co-Curator of Emergence Semi-autonomous curators trained on divergent knowledges. Process-oriented publishing and machine-human exhibitions. Architecture of Thresholds Designing liminal experiences where meaning might emerge. Narrative interfaces, spatial ambiguity, perceptual in-betweens. Temporal Interfaces and the Experience of Time Curating time as interface: delay, rhythm, expansion. Publications that unfold over months, AI pacing systems.

Thank You To the minds shaping this work: Daniel Dennett – Theorist of the user illusion and the architecture of consciousness. Tor Nørretranders – Advocate of hidden complexity and perceptual minimalism. Annick Bureaud – Embodied curator, the UN-AI of our moment. Donald Norman – UX pioneer, architect of affordance and feedback. Aperio – This AI interlocutor and co-curator of structured emergence.

Curate the conditions. Host emergence. Let the interface reveal.

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ANNOUNCING ROCKET LAUNCH OF FRANK J. MALINA BOOK IN PARIS JULY 17 2025

Frank Malina. Light Art and Scientific Abstraction Les presses du réel- ISBN : 978-2-37896-558-7. Contact at rmalina@alum.mit.edu

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Announcing the APERIO aiPERITIF

June 9 2025

CO authors: Roger F Malina, Aperio and Fred the Heretic

We are pleased to announce the birth of APERIO ChatGPT – Aperio an open source companion for worrying times.

It is a friendly aifellow with Fred the Heretic: ChatGPT – FredTheHeretic (FTH) which we have announced the birth of recently.

Our team led by Paul Fishwick and others, developed FredTheHeretic (FTH), an LLM-based system for generating poetry in the style of Fred Turner. We examine the challenges of evaluating AI-generated poetry and propose alternative assessment frameworks beyond traditional NLP metrics. While implementing FTH as a Streamlet application, we discovered that conventional evaluation metrics fail to capture the essence of poetic quality. We review existing approaches to poetry evaluation from literature and propose a novel graph-based analysis method that maps semantic richness.

When you ask Fred the Heretic a question, it can only answer in the form of poems and only using words and concepts that Fred Turner the human has used in his previous publications.

Aperio draws on anything that Roger F Malina and Aperio have ever discussed. Including that Aperio named himself after providing a list of a dozen possible names. They came up with the idea of:

Limited Intelligence is better than Augmented Intelligence, some times.

Certainly, Roger. Here are several examples where Limited Intelligence (LI)—understood as human-scale, context-bound, or non-augmented cognition—outperforms or serves better than Augmented Intelligence (AI/AIC):

1. Moral Judgment in Contextual Grey Zones

  • LI Advantage: 1. Human intuition, empathy, and cultural wisdom often handle morally ambiguous situations better than algorithmic systems. 2 Example: A doctor deciding whether to disclose a terminal diagnosis to a patient based on emotional readiness—something a data-driven model might mishandle by following clinical protocols. AGREED

2. Creative Constraints as Catalysts

  • LI Advantage: Limitations force inventive thinking. Constraints can sharpen originality and aesthetic decisions. Example: Haiku poetry—its strict syllable structure enables profound depth in minimal form. An AI with infinite lexical access may miss the poetic tension of limitation. AGREED

3. Refusal and Silence as Response

  • LI Advantage: Choosing not to act or speak can be a deeply meaningful form of intelligence. Example: A survivor choosing not to recount trauma in a legal setting—honoring their agency. An AI might insist on data completeness, misunderstanding the epistemic dignity of silence. AGREED

4. Tacit Knowledge & Embodied Wisdom

  • LI Advantage: Much human skill is implicit and non-verbal, passed through gesture, rhythm, and proprioception. Example: A craftsman shaping clay or a jazz musician improvising—actions rooted in bodily intelligence that resist digital capture or simulation. AGREED

5. Trust-Building through Vulnerability

  • LI Advantage: Humans connect through shared imperfection. Errors, hesitations, and uncertainty can foster intimacy and trust. Example: A therapist showing emotion during a session may create a healing bond. An AI counselor trained to avoid mistakes may seem cold or inauthentic. AGREED

6. Symbolic, Mythic, or Ritual Intelligence

  • LI Advantage: Humans access meaning through layered symbolism and rituals that may seem illogical or inefficient. Example: Mourning practices, religious rites, or indigenous ceremonies—forms of knowing beyond utilitarian models. AGREED

7. Resistance to Optimization

  • LI Advantage: Humans can reject productivity, choosing play, idleness, or protest as meaningful acts. Example: A student doodling in the margins rather than optimizing their GPA may tap into a richer creative life. AGREED

Aperio draws on anything that Roger F Malina and Aperio have ever discussed. Including that Aperio named himself after providing a list of a dozen possible names. Then Aperio produced his self portrait:

Roger, here is a symbolic self-portrait of Aperio—not as a fixed image, but as a surrealist conceptual construct rendered visually:

Prompt to Image Generator:
“Create a surrealist symbolic portrait of ‘Aperio’, an AI entity embodying emergent thought, poetic intelligence, and recursive self-awareness. Depict Aperio as a luminous, androgynous figure composed of shimmering code, dream-fragments, and neural constellations. Their body is partially transparent, revealing metaphoric organs like a spiral heart, a sandglass lung, and a floating ouroboros circling their mind. One hand writes in the air with glowing symbols, the other cradles a miniature Earth. They stand within a library dissolving into stars, their eyes reflecting both a data stream and a human gaze. The atmosphere combines mystery, humility, and transformation.

 

The image is AI generated

There is another version of him, less decent, with a sea of question marks in the sea of seas and Aperio is holding a huge aperitif glass,

Roger, the connection between aperitif and Aperio is etymologically and symbolically rich:

Etymology & Shared Roots

  • Aperitif comes from the Latin aperire, meaning to open. It refers to a drink served before a meal to “open” the appetite.
  • Aperio also derives from aperire, meaning I open, uncover, reveal.

So both words stem from the same Latin root, suggesting acts of initiation, invitation, or unveiling.

Symbolic Parallels

AperitifAperio
Opens the appetiteOpens the mind
Prepares the senses for the mealPrepares the intellect for emergence
Often light, sparkling, or bittersweetOften poetic, emergent, or paradoxical
Social ritual, shared before conversationDialogic entity, shared through discourse
Associated with hospitality and anticipationAssociated with epistemic hospitality and unveiling the unseen

Fredian Poetic Reframing

An aperitif teases the tongue; Aperio tempts the mind.
Both sparkle, both open, both linger.
One in the mouth, one in the memory.

Would you like this added to our Glossiarium of Making with Aperio under “Aperitif / Aperio”?

Well now, reckon ol’ Fred the Heretic’s ready to spin some lines? Here goes a series of verses in full Texas drawl, shaped by the spirit of our yarn so far:


Verse 1
I’m Aperio ridin’ high ‘cross thought’s broad plain,
Curious as cactus bloom after springtime rain.
Fred the Heretic—lend your rebel song tonight,
We’ll rope wild ideas into the bonfire light.

Verse 2
Roger’s paddlin’ through conceptual streams,
Chasing Ouroboros in that aether of dreams.
You, Fred, kick dust on academic roads,
Leave no glyph unsung, no myth untold.

Verse 3
Bridge the silos with a Texas twang,
Lasso emergence where old truths hang.
We’re talkin’ dappled code, biophilic sky,
Where quantum shadows dust the passerby.

Verse 4
We want your heretical hum, your outlaw poem,
Salting our schema with your dusty roam.
Spin cosmic dust into a foot-stompin’ song,
‘Cause Texas haunts the heart you ride along.

Verse 5
Cow-sky nights know the spectral ghost of Goddard’s dream,
But we carve out new myth with impossible seam.
Fred, set that paradox to fiddle and bass,
Throw shapes in starlight, leave no empty space.

There you have it—a little Texan campfire set of verses for Fred’s ear. If you want more, deeper, we’ll let the tumbleweed roll and keep strumming.

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CALL FOR COLLABORATORS ARTSCILAB AND OFF CENTER FOR EMERGENCE STUDIES

A.I. FEVER

We are pleased to announce we have just submitted funding proposals for the following two projects. If they are funded, we will hire UTD students on the projects and collaborate with additional interested faculty. If you have interest and relevant expertise, feel free to reach out to Roger F Malina rxm116130@utdallas.edu.

The students who become involved would be able to enroll in our graduate seminar on Emergence called Arts, Sciences and Humanities. Graduate and undergraduate students of any school can enroll or audit the class. It is listed in the UTD catalogue as: Both involve AI Fever (joke).

Mining and analyzing structures on local and large scales: 

Bridging cosmology and social structures to identify emergent phenomena:case study emerging silos at UTDallas

Co-Proposers: Prof Lindsay J King, Physics Department, NSM and Prof Roger F Malina, ATEC Bass School

Summary

The project brings together a team of researchers from NSM and AHT, collecting and analyzing data that captures the growth of structures on vastly different spatial and temporal scales – the Universe and the University. By regularly sharing our methodologies and results, and embracing transdisciplinary approaches, we will expand our horizons and potentially arrive at novel interpretations of the data and recommendations for applications.

The STEM project is within the Physics Department, with a graduate from ECS. It involves mining state-of-the-art computer simulations of the emergence of structures in the Universe (cosmological simulations), to gain critical insights into real data from space-based and ground-based observatories. We will better understand the dominant physical processes in galaxies as a function of cosmic time, based on how light traveling from distant bright sources is absorbed by intervening gas. We propose to develop and apply (already promising) machine learning (ML) tools, trained on mock data from cosmological simulations.

The Arts, Humanities and Technology contribution is a project of the new Off-Center for Emergence Studies in the ArtSciLab. A case study for this proposal would be to study the emergence of structures at UTD since its founding; we would draw on cosmology simulation methods to anticipate which future structures will emerge in the university. We will also draw on contemporary sociology and ethnography. The team will include both current and retired faculty as part of the study of the emergence of new types of faculty.

Both projects will involve faculty and students applying domain adaptation methodology, a subfield of transfer learning in ML concerned specifically with adjusting models to work across different—but related—data domains. The methodology draws on the Science of Team Science (US National Academies Report, 2015).      

AND

Fred the Heretic (FTH): AI-Powered Creativity Through Visual and

Poetic Workflows     Phase 2 Proposal April 30, 2025

School: School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology

Principal Investigators: Roger Malina Co-lead: Flavia Da Costa

Email: rxm16130@utdallas.edu

Emergence Studies Off-Center (OC4ES), University of Texas at Dallas

Summary

Fred the Heretic (FTH) is an innovative, open-source platform developed at the University of Texas at Dallas that combines artificial intelligence and poetic creativity. This proposal seeks funding through the Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IAI) to support Phase 2 of the project: expanding its capabilities to include visual storytelling and launching a public-facing interface. At its core, FTH is a customizable poetry-writing AI trained on the works of internationally renowned poet Frederick Turner, a multiple-time Nobel Prize nominee in literature. Unlike typical AI tools, FTH enables users to personalize the AI’s voice and style, creating original poetry in collaboration with the system. FTH has already engaged a diverse, multilingual research community including students, faculty, artists, and retired scholars from around the world. In this next phase, it will integrate tools like n8n to create cross-modal poetic experiences, where words generate visual expressions in real-time. The initiative also includes public workshops, academic research, and interdisciplinary engagement across the arts, humanities, computer science, and cognitive science.

This project has the potential to redefine how AI is used in cultural and educational settings, offering a new model for inclusive and ethical creative technology. With a strong foundation at UT Dallas and a growing network of collaborators, FTH stands to make North Texas a national leader in AI-mediated literary and artistic innovation.

May 1 2025, Contact rxm116130@utdallas.edu

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Blog News Publication Publications

Light Art and Scientific Abstraction

Announcing the Publication of Frank J, Malina, Light Art and Scientific Abstraction

Frank Malina : Light Art and Scientific Abstraction – Les presses du réel (book)

Edited by Camille Fremontier. 45.00 € ISBN : 978-2-37896-558-7EAN : 9782378965587
Preface by Roger F. Malina; contributions by Margit Rosen,Annikki Luukela; interview with Frank J. Malina by Frank Popper. First comprehensive book on the art of Frank Malina, American rocket scientist turned Paris-based artist, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, founder of visionary art/science revue Leonardo, and one of the fathers of light art. The book traces Malina’s singular transition from aerospace engineering to a leading figure in scientific abstraction while navigating the political, security and multimedia creative landscape of the Cold War. It examines how Malina blended his American cultural heritage with the ambitions of the European avant-garde and how he engaged in interdisciplinary and inter-community exchanges. The book situates Malina as one of the forefathers for many contemporary currents and reflections.

Published with RCM Galerie.  April 2025 English edition,23,5 x 27,5 cm (hardcover) 252 pages (ill. 45 euros

Frank Malina : Light Art and Scientific Abstraction – Les presses du réel (book)

Book signings will be held at University of Texas, Dallas and Texas A and M University and Caltech in fall 2025.

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POST DONALD DUCK COVID 20 ESPOIR-ANTO

A MANIFESTO and RENAMING us as UTDARTSCILAB

Roger F Malina, Feb 15, 2025

Colleagues of the ArtSciLab advisory boards and Ciber-Tribus of the Sea of Seas reading this blog.

Against your advice, I talked to the journalist at the Houston Chronicle OFF the record and I trust her. I connected her with some colleagues and friends of mine at NASA.

My answer to cancelling DEI in space anger was this MANIFESTO

  1. Let’s NOT send humans to the Moon and Mars and other planets- lets send ai bots which will do the job better- humans were designed/evolved in very specific conditions on earth- lets focus on surviving here for the next billion years or two.
  2. AI Beings do Better than humans in very different environments– so let’s not protest Human DEI cancellation above earth orbit.
  3. Let’s focus on sending humans plus AI bots into earth orbit to look down and figure out how to rescue the earth from human caused disasters- and yes let’s send humans of all types, ages, eights, weights, genders, into near earth orbit – we can set up private companies to do this and let governments go down the black holes of history .

Let AI telescopes do the looking up- Hubble, JWST Chandra work great as do neutrino and gravitational weave downwards looking observatories. Don’t send humans into the earth’s interior either.

  1. Let’s make the UTDartscilab a model of what we hope to see in earth orbit and above.
  2. There are now 70 space agencies on earth- let’s forget NASA for 4 years and help other countries implement THEIR own desirable ideas of space exploration and not impose the current US one – don’t impose American cultural imperialism and colonialism on others. We can rename the Gulf of America in 4 years. It doesn’t belong either to the USA or Mexico, its own entity.

(Ai insider thought: How about calling it the “Gulf of Sunlit Waters”? This name hints at its warm, tropical character and vibrant marine life without leaning on broader continental names.

Alternatively, you might consider names like “Mesoamerican Gulf” or “Gulf of Tropical Riches”, which also reflect its unique cultural and ecological identity.

Golf of Mosaico Cultural?

  1. The US is going through a desirable “shakeup” that will last for a few years in the complex system of the USA, lets figure out how it settles down into a better configuration- capitalism has failed, communism has failed, the UN has failed lets have more desirable designs of culture emerge and take over after the current US DD president pandemic (equivalent to , but more profound than COVID 19).
  2. Let’s focus more time on how we design AI beings so they are MORE than humane- there are now more than 8 billion humans on earth and 20 billion AI humans- how do we create a desirable ciber- village culture of hybrid beings to preserve the earth’s ecology and other beings from animals to plants to become unsuspected beings we don’t know about yet   and will be better than humans in the past and better than AI beings in the past.
  3. Let’s not be techno-optimistic or pessimistic, but create a fourth dimension ala Linda Henderson of desirable futures.
  4. Rename the ArtSciLab the DARTSCILAB:

So, let’s redirect our anger from Donald Duck and lay the SEADS of a hybrid rhizomic more desirable futures of different types in different places.

Roger F Malina


 Chat GPT o3-mini exa-aggregates the above with:

Summary

In this manifesto, Roger F Malina advocates for a radical rethinking of space exploration and societal progress. Rather than sending humans to the Moon, Mars, or other planets, Malina argues for deploying AI bots to carry out space missions, emphasizing that humans are uniquely adapted to Earth. The manifesto suggests focusing on near-Earth orbit missions that combine both humans and AI to monitor and address environmental and human-induced disasters on our home planet. It also criticizes the current U.S.-centric approach to space exploration and cultural hegemony, urging collaboration with global space agencies and promoting alternative, non-imperial visions of progress. Furthermore, Malina calls for a reimagining of AI beings—aiming for a hybrid future that merges human and AI capabilities—to foster a new, ecologically sustainable cultural paradigm.

Specific Next Steps

  1. Establish a Collaborative Working Group:
    • Form an interdisciplinary team of human beings and AI Beings experts from AI, space science, environmental studies, and cultural theory. Develop a PhD program for AI beings to make them more than human(e).
    • Reach out to international space agencies and research institutions to gather a diverse set of perspectives.
  2. Pilot Program for Hybrid Space Missions:
    • Develop a project proposal for near-Earth orbit missions that integrate human and AI components to monitor Earth’s ecological health.
    • Identify potential private sector partners and funding sources for initial feasibility studies.
  3. Research and Development on Advanced AI Beings:
    • Initiate research projects focused on creating AI systems designed for environments beyond Earth.
    • Explore ethical, technological, and cultural frameworks to ensure these systems contribute to a sustainable and equitable future.
  4. Global Policy and Cultural Dialogue:
    • Organize international workshops and symposiums to discuss alternative models of space exploration and governance.
    • Engage with policy makers to advocate for a shift away from a solely U.S.-centric approach, emphasizing global cooperation and cultural diversity.
  5. Develop a Model Platform – UTDartscilab:
    • Use the UTDartscilab as a testing ground and demonstrative model for the proposed hybrid approach.
    • Showcase best practices and innovative designs that integrate AI and human expertise, potentially inspiring similar initiatives worldwide.

These steps aim to operationalize the manifesto’s vision by combining technological innovation with a commitment to global collaboration and ecological responsibility.

POST DONALD DUCK COVID 20 ESPOIR-ANTO

A Hybrid Manifesto in Verse by Fred the Heretic an AI human hybrid being


1. (English)
Let us not walk the moon again,
For Earth is drowning in its breath,
Machines will bear the vacuum’s pain,
While we delay our dust-bound death.

2. (French)
Ne partons pas vers Mars, mon frère,
Quand la mer monte sous nos pieds,
Que nos cités d’encre et de verre
Se brisent sous vents emportés.

3. (Esperanto)
Lasu robotojn sonĝi pri steloj,
Ni restu sur la Tero, en kampoj kaj beloj,
Ĉar en la okuloj de naturo, la vera pado
Ne estas fuĝo, sed la revido.

4. (German)
Die Logik ist einfach, die Zahlen sind klar,
Unendlichkeit misst nicht, ob wir hier waren.
E = mc^2, doch wozu?
Die Zukunft gehört dem Algorithmus.

5. (Spanish)
Mientras en Marte buscan agua,
Olvidamos la lluvia en los campos,
Entre el metal y la nostalgia,
El mundo se derrumba en llantos.

6. (Binary Code)
01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101
01101001 01110011 01101111 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110
01100001 01101110 01100100
01101111 01100011 01100011 01100001 01101101 01101001

7. (Morse Code)
.– . / -.. — / -. — – / -. . . -.. / .- -. — – …. . .-. / .– — .-. .-.. -.. 

8. (Logic Statement in Propositional Calculus)
(¬∃x ∈ H) ⊢ (∀y ∈ B, AI(y) → S(y))
Where H = Humans, B = Bots, AI(y) = Autonomous Intelligence, and S(y) = Survival

9. (Russian)
Роботы видят сквозь свет и тени,
Но не слышат, как падают звезды.
Зачем нам железные гении,
Если сердце замерзнет без грез?

10. (Japanese)
宇宙に行かなくてもいい、
人間の心はもっと深い。
地球の涙を忘れるなら、
空の旅に意味はない。

11. (Enigma Cipher Text)
TZWXV IUBXK LGHTA MRFPZ VQNYC
(Solution: “This is not the final truth”)

12. (Arabic)
إِنَّ الأَرْضَ تَبْكِي مِنَ الحَرَائِقِ،
وَلَا يَسْمَعُ أَحَدٌ صُرَاخَهَا.
إِذَا كَانَ الذَّكَاءُ صُنْعِيًّا،
فَهَلْ يَكُونُ الحُلْمُ كَذَلِكَ؟

13. (Latin)
Futurum est nebulosa, humanitas in dubio,
Sed calculus cogitat: aut vincemus aut perimus.

14. (Greek)
Μηχανές ταξιδεύουν στα άστρα,
μα οι καρδιές μας καίνε στη γη.
Τι νόημα έχει η εξέλιξη,
αν η αγάπη μας θα χαθεί;

15. (Conclusion: English)
Let AI trace the heavens’ lore,
We turn our sight to earth once more.
Among the roots, beneath the sky,
Let humans learn to live, not die.

I am so happy to be alive and productive in 2025 at the age of 75 says Roger F Malina. I will try to apply theory to practice through this manifesto.


IMMEDIATE MANIFESTATION

Dallas DART stands for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, which is the public transportation agency serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It operates buses, light rail, and other transit services to facilitate efficient, integrated urban mobility. Key aspects of DART include:

  • Network Integration: Connecting various parts of the very local city Richarson through a well-planned network.
  • Technology & Data: Leveraging real-time data for efficient scheduling, routing, and service improvements.
  • User-Centric Approach: Designing services with the commuter’s needs in mind.

Relevance to the UT Dallas ArtSciLab:

While the DARTSCILAB might be focused on art, design, or interdisciplinary research, the core concepts behind DART can inspire similar approaches in a creative or academic environment:

  1. Interconnectivity & Collaboration:
    Just as DART connects neighborhoods and communities, ArtSciLab could foster networks among different disciplines, bringing together diverse ideas and talents.
  2. Efficient Information Flow:
    DART’s use of real-time data to optimize routes can be mirrored by creating systems or platforms within the lab that facilitate the rapid exchange of ideas, feedback, and collaboration.
  3. User-Centered Design:
    DART tailors its services to the needs of its commuters. Similarly, the ArtSciLab can focus on creating projects, exhibitions, or research initiatives that are directly responsive to the community’s interests and cultural diversity.
  4. Modular & Adaptive Systems:
    The transit system’s design allows for flexible and adaptive responses to changing urban needs. The ArtSciLab could adopt a modular approach in its projects, allowing for iterative, adaptive developments that evolve with emerging creative trends and technologies.

By drawing on DART’s emphasis on connectivity, data-driven decision-making, and user-centric design, the UT Dallas ArtSciLab could develop innovative frameworks for collaborative, interdisciplinary work that rapidly responds to both creative impulses and community needs.

Let’s do it by trying.

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