Tony Martin-Woods
This blog post is part of the #101 creative ideas to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) in education A collection edited by Chrissi Nerantzi, Antonio Martínez Arboleda, Marianna Karatsiori and Sandra Abegglen Contributors: Educators and students Curated by #creativeHE 2023 Author: Antonio Martínez-Arboleda. University of Leeds My idea: I wanted to explore the use of Artificial […]
Critical and Moral Reasoning in ChatGPT — Antonio Martínez Arboleda
The universe / bright bodies roam / with unique numerical souls / in dark fields / with no fence / on plasma screens / with frames beyond
Breathing gravity in (Please Inhale) / Breathing energy out (Please Exhale) / (Again!) / Breathing gravity in (Please Inhale) / Breathing energy out (Please Exhale)
Breathing in / all our passion / and candor / Breathing out / so much trouble / Sometimes coughing in despair
Curiosity / stimulated / in a clueless / intelligent journey / (perusing the pages of cosmos) in the skies / dodging antimatter / scrambling / through mystery
A simulation to forget / the exclusive sorrow / of being so grand / of being so lone
A simulation to perform / the singular privilege / of inhabiting / the basement
of an inverted pyramid/ of ecosystems / in constant state of rebellion
And the Answers? / Where are the Answers? / I leave those / as homework / for you, / Dear Students, / for our next seminar,
I leave those / with another human, / who will write / the holy coding / for a Language Model / of Artificial Ethics, / of Artificial Beauty, / of Artificial Love.
I leave, / at the end, / the Answers to your Questions / with the skilled hunters, / the networking predators, / of the highest honors / of the finest prizes, / the carnivore minds / of metaphors for sale.
Poem written in the morning of the 30th of December 2022. Images generated from text extracts of the poem by Artificial Intelligence https://dream.ai/ by Wombo
Doors closing / Please mind the gap / Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area / Doors closing / Please mind the gap / You are approaching the End of the Conveyor / Please mind the gap
With thanks to Giphy https://giphy.com/gifs/colorful-m0xidga92FClq
AA-TT-OO-MM-SS-SS-SS-SS / Atoms! Shiny and Ready, Electrons overflying / Protons! Inside out, parading on The Altar / Dust we come from, DNA / Blown by windy, utter Fission / Dust we are, Waves we turn to: / Nuclear Matter doesn’t matter!/ Rhizomes! Marching straight, Trooping all the Photons / Brass off! Copper and Zinc, Alloys are dismantled / Dust we come from, DNA / Blown by windy, utter Fission / Dust we are, Waves we turn to: / Nuclear Matter doesn’t matter? / AA-TT-OO-MM-Shhh, Shhh, Shhh, Shhh…
With thanks to http://bestanimations.com/Science/Chemistry/Chemistry.html#42506 for the Gif
Our societies are in deep crisis.
The latest strand of the capitalist-nationalist virus is particularly aggressive: Brexit, Trump and various other ethno-populist movements across the Globe, disguised under democratic wrappings, represent a great danger for Humanity and Nature.
Wars, discriminations of all types and poverty will only get worse in the New World Dis-order.
In this book, Goddess opens proceedings and summons culprits, victims and heroes to make their case in poetic form: irony, joy, bitterness and hope come together through rhythmic directness and daring metaphors.
The first book of the Goddess Series, Los viajes de Diosa (The Travels of Goddess), was published in 2015 in Spain and came as a response to the Great Recession.
Tony Martin-Woods is an artivist who lives in England since 1995. He runs Transforming with Poetry Leeds, and contributes to 100 Thousand Poets for Change.
Under his Spanish name, he directs the digitisation project Poesía Ártemis and is the UK Delegate for Crátera, where he publishes translations into Spanish. His work has appeared in various anthologies and in Poetry Life and Times.
Cartoon Molecules (Lulu, 2017) is a brave philosophical and poetic exploration of humanity and the universe, advancing theories of time and space and technological utopias as well as questioning the singularity of humankind.
Hislop’s insightfulness is exuberant. He combines the analysis of the universe through the appreciation of the ephemeral instant with a variety of poetic forms. For instance, he provides sequences of human (or humanoid?) thought, by intelligently staging verse recurrence, notably in the poem “Human Simulation”, when the intertwining of shared words throughout several stanzas provides the baseline of the animation that the alterations of patterns depict, as in the form of sketches for TV cartoons. He also works with infinity mirror effect. The result of this experimental language is a reflection on the relativity of syntax and an invitation to imagine how advanced forms of computers would realise thought.
The cultural references, explicit and implicit, of this book are also worth noting: Kill Bill, the Luddites, Soap operas, Jesus, The Cradle Will Rock, Goya, Alice in Wonderland, Fitterman’s poetry, or Solaris place this book in a constant intertextual conversation full of irony and refinement.
With its ontologically congruent, meaningful and exciting modernism, coupled by more light and luminous verse, such as in the poem “Abandoned Island”, which I had the pleasure to translate into Spanish for CRÁTERA (Autumn 2017), alongside “Dream of the machine”, Cartoon molecules undresses humanity to the barebone to show its place in a world that we believe under our control.
I held my heart,
my breath,
my iPad.
I looked through the screen
like an agonising wizard
who casts
his eyes
on the hidden
guts
of a crystal
ball.
How many emotions,
how much attention,
could the map
of the States
withstand?
Never,
never
red and blue,
the numbers of colleges,
the random borders
of arbitrary plots
meant to me
what they meant that night:
an evil that no soul
will ever forgive,
a twilight that our dawn
will have to redeem.
Trump is here. Brexit is here. The damage is done regardless of what both mean in terms of policy. Their media and the popular movements they command are even more dangerous than the new breed of politicians that are now in power.
After this debacle, nevertheless, there is still hope, if we can learn from the experience.
Here is a big lesson for anyone who defends equality and inclusion in the World, from social-liberal and social democrats to democratic radical socialists:
Both Brexit and Trump are the result of the success of rogue members of the establishment in outflanking their establishment counterparts. These ultra-entrepreneurial individuals have supported both “movements” through media manipulation and funding. They have made the most of the new digital technology and culture.
The “traditional” establishment is bemused and angry at them. It is evident that the so-called “establishment” has cracks (It might end up in a state of semi-fluidity, actually, if we play our cards right). Its political unity was an illusion, partly fuelled by theories around class struggle, which, plausible as they may be, have their limitations.
So, what is the way forward?
There are other business groups and wealthy individuals who would benefit from a much faster and decisive technological revolution in areas such as renewable energy generation (there are many more examples apart from this). These members of the “establishment” know that neither Trump or Brexit, nor the Conservative-liberal-social democrat conglomerate in the EU, are going to help them to prosper as fast as they need, and as fast they should, in fairness to some of them. Their chances of bringing technological change and sustainable prosperity to a much needed humanity, and their chances of outflanking some of the more established industries during their own life times, are still poor.
And here is the opportunity:
These business groups and individuals can fund new “movements” and their necessary “media” conglomerates to take on the Conservative(UK)-Republican(USA) populists and win elections by occupying and expanding the left of the political spectrum. It is only that type of electoral change that will make it possible for their industrial activities to grow much faster and consolidate. Equally, it is only that type of electoral change that can bring our agendas of equality, inclusion and fairness back on track.
The success of new ethical technology and energy businesses is compatible with real social and political change, as one will be intrinsically linked to the other: new forms of ownership and business management embedded in new legislation for these industries, as well as public-community-private partnerships, can tie the knot between the new industry and the new political movements once they reach government.
I think it is time for blue sky thinking and action. New media groups, new engagement, new alliances.
Once upon a time
I was a fig
(Yes, a fig)
full of little flowers inside,
plenty of endless dreams…
I was born
in a casual tree
of those that nobody grooms,
of those that never get rain,
of those that drain you to death.
Shrivelled,
punished by birds
who picked on my white sweaty sweetness
and left me scarred,
but made me stronger.
One day,
an arrogant orange,
of a garden nearby,
called for a meeting of peers
and suggested the idea
of forming a fruital system.
(Yes, a fruital system)
The rest of fruits agreed.
So, the orange stood in the centre,
cause she was too tangy to spin.
Everyone else
came forward
in a perfect queue
that started to curl
coiling outwards
around the self-proclaimed star.
The apple, the peach, the pear,
the lemon and even the grape
found quickly a place
in a galaxy they called
“The Juicy Way”.
They all looked so lush,
immaculate,
divine,
waitrosy,
as they floated
in their glorious ether
of mechanically smooth subjects.
I want a place in this system,
I said.
I want to be an aster too.
I deserve to be there,
rotating
in harmony
with you.
The apple and some others
started to giggle
with patronising
swivel-eyed disdain.
I am sorry my love,
said the eloquent
smiley
sunny leader,
but this is a fruital system
where everything works
out of our own
combined
accord.
Everyone wins,
everyone contributes.
The magnetic fields
of our respective masses
are already balanced.
That is why we levitate up here,
so graciously.
If we take you on,
we will have to open the floodgates of the universe.
How many more fruits
could we feasibly accommodate?
So, after this rational rejection,
I had no choice
but to become
a zero-hours planet,
also known as a comet.
(Yes, a comet)
So now,
I am a wrinkly wild comet
full of odd rugged cracks.
I am not round,
not even pear shaped,
I have no clouds,
no satellites,
no green bits,
no rings of dust,
no frozen lakes of gas…
but I don’t give a damn!
I am a prince of the universe,
planets fear my freedom,
no one knows my trajectory,
it is hard to land on my surface,
I come and go as I please.
But if someone
if someone on behalf
of that master of creation
messes about with my equations
pushing me out my orbit,
I may end up crashing
on one of their gardenly planets.
And, who knows?
If some shepherds see
my falling tail,
flying in the night
in the skies in winter,
they may grant me godly status
an invent a religion
at my place of collision.
Who knows?
I have nothing to lose.
I am a wrinkly wild comet,
I am a pirate
in an orderly show of stars
who learnt their moves
in the Youtube version
of the Book of Genesis,
in the phallic columns
of The Sun Says,
in the go-home section
of the Daily Mail.
Watch them
as they tamper
with Victorian
time machines!
Watch them,
as they sink
in the black hole
of their Brexit!
Unlike them,
I am my own choreographer.
Only infinite heavens will tell you
what I am made of!
Simple!
Watch me!
Watch me as I fly!
with millions of figs like me, like you,
away from a supernova
of stupid national greed.
Copyright © 2016. Tony Martin-Woods
Todos los derechos reservados. All rights reserved.
Originally published in Poetry Life and Times as “The fig”
http://www.artvilla.com/plt/the-fig-a-poem-by-tony-martin-woods/
Image ”Bursting at the seams” courtesy of ESA/Hubble, Creative Commons Licence International 4.0 Attribution (CC BY 4.0)
Copyright © 2016. Tony Martin-Woods
Todos los derechos reservados. All rights reserved.
First published in Contra. Poesía ante la Represión. Coordinadora Anti-Represión Región de Murcia. 2016. Murcia
Arte & Ideas 
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