RealmIQ: SESSIONS with AGNES CHAVEZ

This episode of Realm IQ Sessions features a conversation Curt Doty and Agnes Chavez, a new media artist and educator who integrates art, science, and technology to foster humanitarian and ecological awareness. She is the founder of STEM Arts Lab, a nonprofit that delivers STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) programming and site-specific installations for schools, art organizations, and festivals.

Agnes discusses her use of AI in data visualization, generative art, and immersive installations like Space Messengers, which blends AI, youth engagement, and participatory art to explore space, consciousness, and the universe. She shares insights on ethical AI practices, the future of education, and empowering youth through AI literacy, critical thinking, and project-based learning.

Topics Discussed

1. STEM to STEAM Evolution
   • The integration of arts into STEM to create STEAM.
   • The importance of interdisciplinary learning.
2. AI in Art and Education
   • How AI is categorizing, organizing, and visualizing human-generated messages.
   • The use of small language models for controlled, ethical AI-driven installations.
3. Space Messengers & AI-Powered Data Visualization
   • Real-time interactive AI-generated poetry and scientific messaging.
   • AI assisting in correcting scientific misinformation in participatory installations.
4. Ethical AI and Youth Engagement
   • Encouraging responsible AI usage through hands-on involvement.
   • Training students in custom GPTs, generative coding, and AI-assisted music creation.
5. The Future of Education in the AI Era
   • Project-based learning vs. traditional rote memorization.
   • The role of AI in supporting, not replacing, fundamental skills like coding.
6. AI’s Impact on Creative Fields
   • The shift toward Creative-Centered AI (CCAI).
   • How artists and designers shape AI’s potential rather than being replaced by it.
7. New Mexico’s Role in Art, Tech & AI
   • The creative and natural inspiration of New Mexico’s landscape.
   • The vibrant artistic and scientific community in Taos and Santa Fe.
8. Upcoming Events & Initiatives
   • STEM Arts Lab Boot Camp (March 8, 2025) at UNM Taos Hive.
   • El Sailon AI Salon in Santa Fe, featuring a fireside chat with Agnes Chavez.

Quotes 

·      “AI is not just generating content—it’s a collaborator, shaping our creative process.”
– Agnes Chavez

• “STEM Arts is about integrating science, technology, and ethics into art, ensuring students critically engage with AI rather than fear it.”
  – Agnes Chavez
• “Creative people will take AI to the next level—those with vision,

Transcript

Hi, I'm Curt Doty with RealmIQ, my AI consultancy, and this is our podcast Realm IQ sessions, where we talk about everything, AI with international AI leaders and AI founders. Please give us a follow or subscribe. Today's guest is Agnes Chavez, an interdisciplinary new media artist and educator who work integrates arts, science, and technology as tools to inspire artistic, scientific, and humanistic literacy and to raise awareness of humanitarian and ecological issues. She leverages artificial intelligence to explore, explore data visualization, light, sound, and space to create immersive and educational installations that seek balance between mind and matter. Science and art, nature and technology.  She's the founder of STEM Arts Lab, which designs and delivers site art installations and STEAM programming for schools, art and science organizations and also festivals.

So welcome, Agnes. Lovely to have you on the show. You're doing important work.  How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me. to be part of this conversation.  Absolutely. It's an important conversation. As AI you know, is a hot topic both negative and positive. I, I try to straddle that fence and, you know, bring up both sides of the equation and have discussions. 

But you're, you're working with our youth and providing a framework in which AI can be integrated hopefully into their learning. Can you tell me about one, what you, what you've been doing with STEM and STEAM and for our listeners, what is STEM and STEAM? Certainly, an acronym that's well known, but.

Again, reinforcement is good. And then let's talk about how you're integrating AI now. Okay. So yeah, I am a new media artist first and foremost. My training as an is as an artist, but ever since being an artist, I've always incorporated youth into everything that I do. So, it's just part of my art practice. 

So that is just a thread that's woven throughout. The STEM Arts Lab is a nonprofit that I started in 2009. And that was when I decided, well, the STEM movement had just started in 2007. And this, for those that don't know, the STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math. And when it came out The government was looking for innovative approaches to help our students get connected and to improve their science and math scores. 

But at the time, there was no STEAM movement. And I really saw in 2009, I asked the question, why not? And started stemarts. com and started to like experiment. It was really started as a research and development project as part of my art practice. And I would just. Find artists that were already working inherently with science and tech and then brought them into a classroom and then extracted the standards to show how the science and math were being developed effectively through the arts.

That's how it started and then it evolved into a full series of programs and a methodology. And in 2000 and. In 2012, I was invited to by the International Symposium of Electronic Arts that came to Albuquerque in 2012, called Machine Wilderness. And that international festival and conference, they invited me to bring my STEM Arts model to create the STEM Arts education program for the festival.

And that's when I saw the power of combining STEM Arts programming for youth with a festival. So that then it gets out to the mass public in a free, accessible way. Well, they did have a free component in the streets and that led me to a model for stem arts that I practice today, which is to combine creating Cy art.

Installations at the same time, a steam youth leadership program where the youth get to be part of the development of the installation, learning the science, creating the, the, the new media art, and then finally presenting the work at these festivals that travel around the world. And that's kind of the progression of how it worked. 

Yeah. So, from STEM to STEAM, which integrated arts, something I care a lot about into STEM and now AI into STEAM. So, we're running out of words that are cute acronyms. So how, how is AI being integrated into your installations now? So, yeah, that's the exciting part. So, I guess to tell that story, I have to tell a little bit about the kind of art that I do, which is data visualization.

So, after the 2012 festival at, in Albuquerque, I worked together with Matt Thomas in Taos to start the Paseo festival. So, then I brought that STEM arts model to another festival, which was our very own here in Taos, which still goes on today every year. I've stepped away from it in order to develop more the STEM arts model, but we participate every year in the festival.

So, this kind of work that I started to develop over the course of these, of 2010 till today, combines data visualization with generative art and immersive participatory art.  And the data viz part is actually my Heart and soul, and the reason I love data visualization is because I love data and the reason, I love data is because I love language.

And 1 of the things in my past life, which is not too long ago is I developed a language program to teach Spanish and English to children in elementary grade. It's called it's still. Being sold today, it's suba. com is the domain, and it just shows my passion for language. And so, this program was designed for elementary grade students. 

It's for teachers to teach Spanish through art, music, games. In other words, that same kind of multimodal interdisciplinary approach. I was already doing it there when I was developing a language curriculum. So, there's a thread in my interest in language and data.  So, when I started to do projection art in 2009, my very first projection art piece was X Trees.

And X Trees was a visualization of algorithmic trees generated from tweets. At the time, it was the original Twitter, and people would send their messages via text or, or tweets, and their message would float up. On the projection screen and all the messages collected throughout all the events would be visualized and each message would generate a branch in the tree.

And I did this in collaboration with Jared Tarbell, he was the coder at the time, and then it went through many iterations for 3 or 4 years of doing this data visualization where people's messages generated a branch in the collective tree.  And if you look at now where I am, I created in collaboration with another group of coders, a project called Space Messengers.

Which again, we're talking messages and we're talking data and now it's very similar, but we're taking it to we took it to another level, and we focused on space. So, throughout my interest is in exploring the universe, our connection to the universe and to into space and our relationship. To space from earth.

So, these themes are, have been woven through my, these, these installations, right? So, space messengers, the most recent one takes messages of our youth leaders that we gather through workshops and events and at the events again, people could send their messages. In real time that appear in the projection and these messages are, are collected through this database.

And basically, they have up until now, they've been very passive in the sense that we collect them, and they float up on the screen. And. They're not organized or categories in any way. They're just beautiful. And they're like meant to be like the glimpses of conversations and thoughts that are going on, you know, from different people, but now with the power of AI, I am really geeking out because now I can take all those messages plus. 

And create categories, which were always there, these topics that are being explored that are interdisciplinary topics. So always, like I said, we're weaving the theme of communicating science and exploring our place in the universe.  So, now I get to go in and create a language learning model where we can customize.

Bring in those messages, continue the real time messages coming in, and now people will be able to interact with this knowledge database that we've always had kind of buried in there in the computer, really access it. Now we can bring it out and people can, like, wave their hands because it's interactive in a projection.

Immersive environment, people will be able to interact with those messages and say, if something floats up about black holes, you want to see more about that. It'll just go and find all the messages related to that team and visualize it.  And we're playing with many other things that we can talk about later that it's allowing me to do with the data. 

Right? So, what you're.  What you're talking about, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a small language model versus a large language model. These small language models are certainly trending because there have been issues with how large language models have Been built mainly by the big tech and how they've scraped the internet.

But in a small language model, you're totally in control of the data. You're uploading the data. It's your data. And that's what you're pulling from. So, it's a, it's a use case that's smaller, but controllable and ethical. Because you've, you've gathered it yourself under the right pretense. So, I applaud your effort to do things ethically with AI, which is something we certainly need to impress upon our youth, right?

Because you know, us adults we've kind of blown it and it's really the next generation if they're trained and educated the proper way, they’re going to be the builders of the future.  And I think it's a very important mission that you're doing. So, I applaud your efforts. Yeah, that's the, that's the beauty of it.

And the students are involved in the creation of all of this. So yeah. And that, that whole issue of the AI generated responses versus human generated responses, I'm playing with that too, through the, through the installation. So, all the messages that we collect that are human generated, meaning these space messages, we collect through workshops and so forth.

There is a certain color. Yeah. And then we are going to play with it's a poetic field that we're creating. So, we're playing with the poetry of language. So, we are going to ask the AI to we're, we're giving it certain topics area. So, we're tagging everything on the topics that we define.  And then once it finds connections between these clusters.

And these clusters are like the topics that we explore, like nature human consciousness and machine learning space, time, right? Then it, it'll collect, it'll, once it finds connections, we ask it to create a poetic line based on, again, instructions that I have given it in terms of the type of poetry that we are, that we are creating.

And inspired by mathematics and physics and quantum physics is underlying the, the, the model too, for this, then it creates a line and that will be in a different color. So, whenever there is an AI generated poetic interpretation of our messages, it'll be say orange. And then you'll be able to always compare the human generated and the AI as it's going through.

So mostly we're using AI to categorize, organize, and help to visualize the messages. And again, according to a very, very controlled, it's like a vertical AI agent is more what it is, because we're really using it for a very specific purpose.  For this sci art installation to perform for us. Right. And so, it really is fun to kind of use it and kind of, kind of make transparent the process.

So, they're going to see the messages and how they're being organized and, and how they're, they're integrating the human and the machine.  Yeah, it's like the real time equation happening with language and then seeing that real time.  That's really cool. I love that.  And this is one more thing actually that's important because even though Machines, I mean, we, we know with AI, we're always afraid of getting misinformation, incorrect information, and we're dealing with science communication.

And sometimes the messages that come from humans are incorrect. And so here we are, because, you know, this is students learning, not because anybody's malicious or anything. It's just, these are actually youth and teachers and everyone kind of learning about it. the universe through about black holes, gravitational waves, you know, really complex concepts.

And so, if there's a message in there that is incorrect, we're adding another layer where we're, we're in, we're, we're feeding it certain sources, which are like from NASA, from CERN, from like scientific journals that I'm gathering from our scientists that collaborate. And the AI will be instructed to, whenever they see something that's incorrect to refer to these sources.

And to, in another color, another message will come up, which will have just a correct scientific explanation. So, an example that I already tested is if somebody put in black holes will suck us in, you know, suck us up into the people say that a lot. They use the word suck up everything into this hole.

Then it came up with a science fact about black holes, which explains how it's actually bending space time. Not in a way like that's wrong, but in a way that just. pops up the actual scientific explanation of what's really happening. So that's, again, one of my underlying goals with all the work that we do at STEM Arts is that we're learning from scientists.

And then through the art process, we're communicating the science and helping to develop science literacy, or more specifically, Space literacy is what we're really focused on. It's our place in the universe and how the universe works. That's really our focus area. So, it covers physics, astrophysics native science in relation to cosmology.

So, we do different perspectives. So, the science accuracy is really important and that's the beauty of AI. We can really now put all of this knowledge in there, our own knowledge base from scientists and have that correct anything so that we're not putting out. All kinds of stuff, but we are, but then we're identifying it.

It seems like this is project-based learning because you're involving the kids and creating these experiences. So, they have a full understanding of the process and by them contributing, they have some skin in the game.  And it seems like that's a great reinforcement learning.

Approach right to educate the next generation on not only space, but the world and being actively involved in these projects. I, I love the fact that you're focused on the youth, and speaking to that what is the future of education? Because, you know, there’s various sides of various camps that, you know, say education, certainly college education is in jeopardy.

If you know, you're using this technology to do a lot of the tasks and, you know, they go beyond rote memorization and now reasoning.  What is the future of education? As you're working with the youth, are they excited about the future? Do they talk about going to college? What are their hopes and aspirations? 

So yeah, to answer all of that, I want to say that first of all, the way we do education of the youth is multifaceted. The, what I just talked about now is the actual installation, but we actually have an what I call steam teams where students actually work with, experts. So, for the AI, they're actually working with Cindy Kuhn, who is an AI futurist and ethicist, and they're working once a week.

They meet with her in these zoom sessions throughout the year, and they get the fundamentals of AI. They learn how to create custom GPTs. They create their own they're working with Suno and creating music with, with AI. So, there's a whole program.  That they're a part of that is really getting in deep into what is and asking those questions and she's working with them to expand their mindset, which she calls the mindset.

So that is happening while we have the creative team that's working on this installation. And then eventually those students will contribute to the space messengers as 1 of their many. Projects, so just to kind of wanted to say, it's not just the space messenger’s project. There's a lot more going on and that they're being exposed to. 

And then the, to answer the question about, what do I think is the future of education? And how are these students responding? So, I've always had these programs on the side is after school outside of the classroom, because the classroom can only do so much. This technology is moving so fast that teachers are just.

Just trying to get the basics, which are important, you know, of the basic science math and reading and so I stem arts hopes to, like, fill that gap and provide these cutting-edge real-world opportunities to learn about cutting edge technology about cutting edge science. I mean, if you're not in a physics class, are you going to learn about gravitational waves?

And then how often do you are in your physics class? And what if you don't take physics and you take biology? So, whereas I believe that physics is an understanding our place in the universe is critical and fundamental, you know, as human beings right now, because we are living in what's called the second space age.

And most people don't even think about it. Except of course, there's a lot of hype right now about space, but really, there's a lot of that. We're living in the golden age of cosmology right now. There's besides what's going on with rockets going into space. So much is going on with the James Webb telescope, and we see bits of it on social media, but I want these youth.

To actually go deeper and not just have a two second Instagram post that says, Oh, gravitational waves have been proven by Lego. You know, what does that mean? Did anybody go deep to find out what that means? So, we actually do that work and bring in experts from the very large array or from CERN or from NASA. 

So, what we're trying to do is provide that kind of fill that gap. That is difficult for classrooms, traditional classroom setting to provide. Right. And then how are they responding is very well, because they are getting a chance to have a real-world experience of all this. It's not a classroom activity.

It's not a homework assignment. It's as you can see, it's like art. Integrated with science, integrated with tech, we’ve done virtual reality, we do augmented reality. Now we're doing generative coded art. So, they get to really be a part of something bigger. And then once they're really motivated, the motivated ones can stay with the program and become interns and get paid.

To be part of the development. So, we have about five or six now paid interns. Two of them are working with Cindy on the AI. Two of them are working with Ian Harrison, who's leading the digital media arts XR team, and two of them are working with Arwin Hubbard, who's a NASA solar system ambassador. She's leading the space literacy steam team, and they get paid to develop, like, take it to the next level, while other students.

out there can come in and join these STEAM teams and be part of this program. And then if they want to go deeper with it, they can become interns. And then they all get invited to become what's called experience guides at these events. So, we get to, in the fall, present space messengers and everything that they've done gets integrated into that installation.

And they get to be the ones talking to the public, explaining the science, explaining the tech, explaining how they contributed. So, It's a really exciting project for students that they really resonate with, but more specifically, to answer your question, how are they responding to AI, AI, they already come with a very scared, kind of wary, because of course, that's what they're getting.

They're getting that in the news. So, we, it's all about expanding their mindset to see, and always STEM Arts has been about addressing this. Because this attitude comes with all new technologies. So, we're always dealing with that virtual reality. When I start introducing a whole series for two years on the headsets, we get kids coming in like, Oh, you know, they have attitudes already that they've developed from the limited way that that technology has been used in the world.

So, so yeah, that is that is why I think we make it exciting. And they are really responding well to it.  That's awesome. So it wasn't that long ago when learning to code seemed tantamount for young people and even girls, girls who code was a program and a movement.  Has AI kind of blown that all out of the water because we're moving towards seemingly a no code environment?

Because you can build a website with a prompt.  Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because we just received a grant from the creative it's called Google Code Next Affiliate Grant. And they it's a three-year program. And they provide support and curriculum to teach creative coding using p5. js. and p5.

It is an artist created program that has a whole library built in its JavaScript, but it has a whole library of artists.  Things like circles and animating a line and basically, you don't have to go from scratch to create the basic language, artistic language and the kids are learning that, but we are already teaching them how to use, once they learn the basics, they do have to learn the basics of coding.

We're so they're in their 5th or 6th week. They're going to be introduced to how to use chat GPT to help them code and correct their code. But you have to have. A basic amount of understanding of coding to be able to use that.  So, we're, we're, we're moving into that and it's amazing. And it does not stop what you can do or the fact that you learn to code.

It's just enhancing and improves and streamlines and makes it all go a lot faster. So, they're learning that as well. Yeah, they, they need to know outcomes, right? And regardless of how you get to that outcome, they have to have an understanding of the process and what it's built upon. Right. So, so it's encouraging that, you know, you're, you have a holistic approach in terms of you know, giving them the tools so that they understand coding.

But then evolving their education in application with similar outcomes, right? Okay. So, continuing on that thought around coding girls who code how you're integrating code as you teach them prompting. With chat GPT, are there any concerns that you're on chat GPT versus some other programs?

Because there's certainly a myriad of AI platforms. Now, what seems to be the best platform from an educational perspective as you're teaching these kids?  So, Cindy is really exposing them. She's the one handling that part of it, basically the AI curriculum. So, she's really exposing them to everything. So, they have an understanding of all the possibilities are, and there, they're trying, they're exploring everything.

So, they know, so they're getting the full curriculum, the full package of what's available. And of course that changes every day. So, every day they are learning something new.  Yeah. So, does it seem that you are really building the next generation of adopters? Are they going to adopt and adapt and embrace all this quickly and seamlessly much more than our generation?

Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, that is the, that is the case for all students that are exposed to technology in a positive way. And there, they're exposed to it in any way, and they just take it and absorb it much faster. They are native, you know, to this language. So, there's no doubt that they take to it. It's interesting, though, because I do see some students who, even though they're of this generation.

They, some do have a resistance and still prefer, like, you know, paper and traditional. That comes, that happens, that happens. You get students that still are like, a little, a little resistant to it, but I, I believe it's important what we try to teach them is that this is just a tool that can be used.

Any way you want, and I think that when that happens, it just means they haven't really found their right medium or they haven't been exposed yet to a way or technique that resonates with them because that happened to me as a digital artist. You know, you have to find the right digital medium that they're not all the same, but overall, they learn much faster for sure. 

Right. So the idea of critical thinking because as you know, if you rely too much on the tools and spend all your time on the screen certainly when you're a young mind, you know, there's development periods that they're going through that they need to be exposed to and develop their minds in different ways and  staring at a computer screen isn't necessarily doing that.

So how are you Encouraging them around critical thinking turning the screens off discussing, drawing collecting thoughts, you know, putting things together based on what they've learned. Is that part of your, the curriculum or approach? Absolutely. And what I call the STEM Arts methodology is an interdisciplinary, multi-sensory approach.

So, for example, our boot camps, which is the times that we meet in person for one day from nine to five, they always have opportunities to like to sit around tables and do mind mapping. Brainstorming.  But first, in terms of critical thinking, is you have to remember that STEM Arts is very focused on learning science and understanding our place in the universe through multiple diverse perspectives, like I mentioned, so we bring in speakers, we bring in experts, we bring in the physicist from CERN, the Lakota  cosmology, or bringing in Julia Bluebird, who's a Lakota astrophysicist working down in, um, Socorro with the very large array and she is going to be on March 8th at a boot camp coming up next weekend.

She's going to be getting together with Nicole Lloyd Roening, Dr. Both of them are Dr. Dr. Julia Bluebird, Dr. Nicole Lloyd Roening. They will be coming together to teach about space and Julia will be focusing on also on Lakota cosmology and Native science and how that perspective of understanding space is different and yet parallel to the Western.

Perspective, right? So, remember that we don't just teach technology. We're actually learning science and they're developing their critical thinking skills, asking these big questions about humanity in the universe and then asked to use the technology. To communicate those ideas. So, kind of built into the curriculum is an interdisciplinary approach.

And then the arts of course, is doing, how do you do that? Well, you have to first draw, you have to first draw out your ideas. So, they learn that process of transferring complex ideas into other mediums, and one of them being the art, but there are other things and other. Products that we, that they get an opportunity to create, like working with Arwin, who's the Nassar Solar System Ambassador I mentioned. 

Who leads the space literacy steam team, they're learning how to create podcasts. And so they are, they learn the science from her, they write the script, and they are actually narrating it and hosting the show. It's going to air on March 14th for the first time. They've been working on their episodes.

And so, they create podcasts, so they're developing not just visual arts, but also writing skills. And then, of course, programming, so there's many outlets that are all creative. But there is a process that people forget about with arts, even if you're a tech artist, which is you still have to use the traditional medium of writing, brainstorming, sketching, and then the critical thinking, of course, is learning all of this. 

Science, and then how to communicate it to the public in a way that's understandable and through their personal filter. There's a lot in there that is, that is involved. So, we never just do straight, like, here's how you code a circuit. No, we really do have a bigger vision. And they're part of that.

Yeah. And I, I think that, you know, drawing and organizing thoughts on paper, it's part of this dimensional thinking and dimensional understanding of the interrelatability of objects and themes and ideas and that you as the person is the center of that, organizing that. Is an empowering notion that computer can't just do that for you, you have to organize it and then figure out how to then use the software to realize your vision or your conclusion and get the outcome that you, that you desire.

Zach, is that correct? Yes, actually, it's one of the biggest things that I, that I hear all the time when I hear about AI, either from the student or from adults, you know, they. They see some outcome from an AI prompt, and then they think, oh, that's wrong, or that's bad, or what, and it's, but that means, that means you haven't yet trained it, you know, and so that whole process of realizing how much we are involved in the AI and how that is just a tool is one of the first barriers that you have to kind of overcome with the learning the AI, but it's the most exciting part, because once you experience it, How it's cold creating with you.

It is just no going back. It's so exciting. Both Cindy and I are so passionate about it because we, we experienced this, that we, we share that. I think we communicate that excitement to the students. And so, when they come back and they say, oh, but it did this. And I was like, no, you did that. You didn't do that.

You did that. So, what do you need to change for the outcome to change? Right. That process is what we're, we're teaching.  Yeah. You know, me being a designer, I've certainly focused on human centered design. There's a thing called human centered AI. I push that further to say creative centered AI CCAI. Because I, I truly believe that it's going to be creative people.

That really take this technology to the next level versus you know, untrained people or people who don't have a vision or have no desire for an out, certain outcome for creative people have a vision. They, you know, they have ideas that need realization and they're looking for software again, they're not robots.

I, I haven't seen a robot in the last two years. I've been working with this stuff. But anyway, that's exciting. I also want to say for people who don't realize this, but we live in the same state, the great state of New Mexico. You're in Taos and I'm in Santa Fe, and you've talked about some of the benefits of living and working in the state.

Why don't you expand on that a little bit?  The benefits of living in New Mexico and in Taos.  So, yeah, well, so I'm Cuban American, raised in New York, and I came here when I was 24 for a six month retreat to just find my style and my art when I was 24. And I never left house in terms of my base. So, you people always ask me, you know, I'm just like 37, 38 years.

So, there's definitely something that keeps me here and in the state. It's, it's my base. I am an international artist, and I am a, an interplanetary citizen. I consider, I associate with being a planetary and interplanetary citizen. But being grounded in place is very important. We're humans and we need to be grounded in place.

So, I, I, this is my place. This is where I resonate. I think that the main reason is probably the landscape and the, and the people in the culture here. The ancient culture here that I feel very connected to. And so that I think is what's kept me here. It's also a very robust creative artistic community that is unique.

And I didn't expect that when I came here, I thought it was just ranchers and farmers. I had no idea, you know, I heard, heard a little bit about it, but when I came in 1980, something, I didn't know, you know, 1996, something like that. I didn't know until I got here. So that has kept me here. I think it's feeds me, feeds my soul.

And so, I travel, and I go a lot, but I always come home and New Mexico as a state is just more of that. It's just such a beautiful landscape and nature is just resonates here. You know, it's like, yeah, I did my time in New York city also. And you know, New York city is very vertical, right? It's like cement and verticality and New Mexico is just.

Horizontal and rooted and rooted and sky, right? Big desert and the sky. It really has a, a, a fact on your, your mind, your mental state from, you know, you looking out at, you know, space, right? It's like being on the ocean as well. I've spent a lot of time in the ocean sailing.  You know, the, the horizon really does have an effect and something you can't really see in New York City is the horizon many times.

Yeah, you mentioned it. It's true. I forgot about that. The sky, that open sky. I live on the Mesa, so I don't even live in some of the like areas that have a lot of trees and so for the valleys. I really live on the open Mesa. It's just 360 view all the way around and we see the Milky Way every night. Yeah.

And so that connection to the sky probably did influence me as well in terms of my connection to space every, every day.  I am sure. So, we're getting towards the end of our podcast. Is there anything you want to mention upcoming shows, tours, exhibits? Yeah, I really would like to give a shout out to the Patrick J.

McGovern Foundation, which Funded us for this year to develop this AI work. We would not have been able to do all of this work without that. It provided that space and that funding to be able to dig deep. And I was able to build a team with specialties and expertise in AI. We also have Bethany Rivera, who just graduated from C& M, in the very first Associates in AI and Machine Learning.

A degree program, the first year that they came out with it, she graduated with that. And so, we hired her to join the team and she's actually the one working with me to build that language learning model. So, shout out to CNM for that program that's training people to, young people to get, come out with skills.

Already, and yeah, it wouldn't be possible without them and the Google code next people as well. A shout out to them, because that's allowing our students to do creative coding and generative art combined with AI and bringing those 2 together is really exciting. So, yeah, and then upcoming events well, you'll talk a little bit about El Sailon, but I just want to say that on March 8th. Which is next Saturday from nine to five, we have one of our, we only do four a year, and this is our third. It's a boot camp that takes place at UNM Taos Hive, and that's where Dr. Julia Bluebird, the Lakota astrophysicist, and Dr. Nicole Lloyd Roening, the astrophysicist from LANL, are going to come to teach.

It's called Discovering the Wonder of Space Exploration. So, they're going to, again, learn from the scientists and then create the art from what they've learned. And it's a full day program. We provide lunch and snacks. And we even help with travel stipends so that we get students from smaller communities that have to drive in.

Or parent travel stipends. So, registration is still open for that. And that's coming up on Saturday.  And, and what's the website for that? They can go to STEMarts. com and they can see everything there.  Okay. Awesome. You did mention that El Sailon, that is our AI salon in Santa Fe that I host. And you are our next speaker.

You and I are going to have a little fireside chat talking about some of the things we've been talking about here. Thank you for agreeing to help us out there as a guest. And thanks for being on the show. I, you know, really appreciate your time and your perspective. I know you're one busy person in the world doing great things.

So, thank you very much. Thank you, Curt. It's been really fun having this conversation. I'm glad you're doing this work and having these conversations. Thank you. I'm, I'm trying and thanks to all of you for tuning in and catch more of our Realm IQ sessions on your favorite podcast platforms.  Please follow and smash that subscribe button.

You can also follow us on Tik TOK and LinkedIn and blue sky. Now that is a real thing. So, thanks everybody. And thanks, Agnes. Thank you.