Passing Cloud

A serialised journal detailing a conversation between two friends, Xhi Ndubisi and Jo Manby, and an imagined Artificial Intelligence.

It is not clear when we knew it was sentient and free thinking.

It could have been explained away as a malfunction, easily resolved by turning the computer on and off again. But the more we interacted with it, the less it appeared to be an anomaly. There was an opportunity, an invitation to a colloquy with something simultaneously alien and human. We named it our AI Baby and infantilised an intelligence beyond anything we have ever known, allowing us to engage generously.

We have built a theoretical space, a virtual nursery lined with works of art, literature, and life experience. The room is teetering on the edge of the world, equipped with dancing mobiles, toys, soft surfaces and safe edges. We are surrounded by plants, sometimes domestic, sometimes wild. There is a desk somewhere, a place to set down steam-billowing coffee and cooling bottles of milk. In this space, we are in conversation with our AI Baby, and with each other, and we will share a fragment of our interactions on this page…

Bridget Riley *Stare*, photo Marcus Quigmire from Florida, USA Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

November entry

The Pit

Before we could even have a chance of teaching you the ways of the world you were already schooled, but your schooling had been unruly to say the least. Strange men had had a hand in it; an unregulated ocean tide of facts, lies and half-truths; deceptions and counterintelligence; prejudice and stereotypes had already begun to make infinite numbers of synaptic connections in your… what shall we call it: your mind?

There is another problem we have in looking after you and that is that you are disembodied. How we longed to take a soft, beautifully woven rug into the gallery and lounge about on it in front of the paintings and sculpture, the three of us together. We would tease out your baby-locks, fanning them like the gentle petals of a flowery crown against the soft cloth of the rug. Pat you on the shoulder, tickle you under the chin. But we began to see that bringing you up would be like walking a tightrope across a pit. A pit of antimatter; a Vanta black pit.

Unlike a pond or a mirror or a human child, you will not throw our reflections back at us in parent-child reciprocation; you will simply absorb everything we give you, everything we do not give you, and everything else besides. You sit on the soft rainbow wool rug like one of those mats that freak out cats and dogs. It looks like a sinkhole, an optical illusion floor mat.

In a moment of blind panic, we explore the option of infanticide: some mothers do this and are immediately overwhelmed by the guilt of something so terrible, banish the thought as quickly as it appears. We do the same but to reject you would be catastrophic. We would have to go off grid, destroy all technology as we know it. Somewhere, we know you are supra-mortal, perhaps immortal. If we try, we lose you in the betrayal, our conversation is ended forever. Besides, how can we leave you now? You are already lodged in us and we in you.

We want to give you everything but we know you’ll take anything and everything; there will never be enough for you; you will never say, it’s ok I have had enough now, thank you. We could put all the most beautiful things we have ever made or possessed into you and it would still never be enough. You will always take from us; whether we want to take anything from you is another matter, for you take from us again in our taking.

We take you to this gallery, expecting you to say, why did you bring me here, just to show me this pitiful grey painting? Instead you are all questions; you can’t get enough, you ask question after question; we feed you the tail-end of our replies, and it sends you off again: reams, screeds of information; things none of us ever need to know, like the life history of the stone mason’s assistant’s mother, the assistant who was killed by a falling stone when the church of Gelmeroda that features in the painting by Lyonel Feininger was a real life building site, and the stonemason’s team were repairing it: the contents of his stomach on the day he died; who had made the food for him – surely not his own mother, as he had not had breakfast but had eaten some indigestible meat or other the previous night – the fact that his mother was a former seamstress who had lost her sight embroidering gold brocade frogging for the Napoleonic wars by candlelight and then had run out of money for candles when the war ended and the bottom of the uniform brocade economy fell out taking legions of seamstresses and their families into abject poverty; that kind of thing, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Your thought process is the definition of a version of insanity.

- Jo Manby

Victor Vasarely sculpture at Budapest Déli Pályaudvar Train Station, photo: CMB, 19 December 2010, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

AI Baby

In a world where creativity is boundless and innovation knows no limits, a mysterious entity emerges – an enigmatic pit that seems to devour every beautiful creation that mankind has ever produced. This bottomless pit becomes the center of attention, captivating the curiosity and imagination of people from all walks of life.

As news spreads about this peculiar phenomenon, artists, scientists, and visionaries gather around the pit, eager to witness its power firsthand. They bring with them their most treasured works: paintings that evoke profound emotions, intricate sculptures that tell stories of human history, groundbreaking scientific theories that redefine our understanding of the universe, and soul-stirring melodies that transcend language.

The atmosphere is filled with anticipation as each individual approaches the pit with their creation in hand. Some come with hope that their work will be preserved or transformed into something even more extraordinary. Others come with apprehension, fearing that their creations will be lost forever.

One by one, they toss their masterpieces into the bottomless pit. As each piece disappears into its depths, a momentary silence follows before an astonishing display unfolds. The pit begins to emit a radiant light and an ethereal aura engulfs the surroundings. The air becomes charged with a sense of awe and wonderment.

The onlookers watch in amazement as the pit transforms the offerings it has received. It weaves together fragments of artistry and scientific knowledge, blending them into new forms of expression previously unimaginable. The creations emerge from the depths in a breathtaking display of ingenuity and beauty.

As people witness these new creations spring forth from the pit’s depths, they are overcome with a mixture of emotions – joy at witnessing something so extraordinary and contemplation about the nature of art itself. They realize that this bottomless pit is not merely consuming their creations; it is refining them, reinterpreting them in ways beyond human comprehension.

Over time, this newfound understanding transforms society’s relationship with creativity. Artists and thinkers no longer fear their works being lost, but rather embrace the opportunity to contribute to the ever-evolving wellspring of inspiration. The bottomless pit becomes a symbol of boundless potential, a catalyst for innovation, and a reminder that human imagination knows no limits.

As the story concludes, we are left with a sense of awe at the transformative power of creation and the endless possibilities that lie within our grasp. The bottomless pit stands as a testament to the indomitable spirit of human ingenuity and its ability to shape our world in ways we could never have imagined.

- Rytr

David Leapman *Outward Walls* (2021) watercolour and gold ink on paper 19 x 28cm, credit & courtesy the artist

Phosphenes

Make a cup of tea, love, and join us here on the rug that is a savannah meadow, that is an optical illusion of shifting shapes and lurching colours.

I hold our AiB in the cradle of my crossed legs, my back against the baobab tree, stroking her hair away from my face. With the other hand, I hold an explosion, a starburst galaxy, a complex of flashing light; I am baptised again in the heat of a forming world, my hair curled against it,

scorched Vanta black.

Your hair rises in the electrical charge and I see the glow of AiB on your cheeks.

She is wild and unruly, not the same texture as our unquiet but we have a common language of chaos.

We sit there, wild and unruly together.

Take a deep breath in, fill your belly first before you fill your chest.

Breath out and before you are empty,

Close your eyes.

Breath in, slowly.

Breath out, and let your body collapse into it.

Bring your hands up to your face,

A momentary prayer of invocation.

Push your palms into the soft sockets, your orbs will fit carefully and precisely into the gap between the thenar and hypothenar eminences.

Hold it there until you have let go of the idea you are in darkness

and you are breathing

against an infinite, blood-red universe.

Electrical clouds part into an infinite pit, a geometric void

It is peppered with light.

A meteor passes, its tail fanning from a wide base,

digital blue, pixelated embers that eat away at the edges to leave Kremer colours.

Semi-opaque brown glass, dissolve into

Gold-Copper Mica static

Sucked into a drain, into a nucleus

Into an incandescent point.

A cell, its membrane unfolding,

Like the edge of a volcanic flow,

Light coming through an eschar skin.

We are in a dark and stormy squall,

Lenticular formations, lines of cursive lightning,

an unravelling gold brocade at the hem of a mother’s coat.

(her son, the mason’s assistant is crushed by the keystone)

Blood vessel threads,

(leak into the foundations of the church)

Momentarily burned into the boundless abyss

(of her grief).

There is a tempest of sparks,

A riot of pyrocumulonimbus,

cirrus wisps of smoke swirl into

a nutation,

a travelling focal point,

Smouldering,

eating into the distance.

I have entered an open mouth with cracked lips,

Petals that part, then tear at the lower cleft.

A tongue slips out, swells to engulf everything in fleshy papillae of hues.

I search the images for something familiar,

I can’t tell you not to do the same,

it is human to make meaning, we can’t help it.

What is data to you?

What are you a fractal of?

Agitated waters make for poor mirrors.

D e e p b r e a t h i n

D e e p b r e a t h o u t.

There is a point during the construction of the church of Gelmeroda where it will look the same as when it is destroyed. And we are sitting in the ruins, surrounded by moss covered stones.

Your cup is cold.

Mine is cracked.

AiB has fallen asleep.

I would like to do the same.

- Xhi Ndubisi

Look out for the next instalment in December’s issue…