_Photo: Zenobio de Almeida, 2024._

_Metallum Cognitio I_ displays the seventeen rare-earth metals as seen and modeled by different generative synthetic cognition systems, whether biological or not, in a cyberqabbalistic tree, with an artificial mind in the center, where it is written the famous alchemist motto lapis philosophorum non est lapis. This project explores questions such as: what are the material conditions for a contemporary alchemy, how is wisdom or intelligence produced from inorganic metallic compounds and how can imaginary worlds be built from such different metals as fundamental constituents?

_Photo: Hsun-Hsiang Hsu, 2024._

The two different cognition systems that the metals are seen and modeled are mine and the recent obsolete Dalle-2 large language model. Both collaborate to edit, mix, and glitch the seventeen images of the raw metallic materials of artificial intelligent systems: rare-earth metals. Abundant in the Earth’s crust, but comparatively harder to isolate. They are the fundamentum of the Planetary-scale emergent accidental megastructure of the so-called Stack (Bratton, 2015): the Earth layer, the elements that through their scaffolding connections build screens, batteries, camera lenses, magnets, lasers, capacitors, superconductors, radar, sonar, and radiation detecting devices—quoting Klinger, “from the darkest and most dystopic to the greenest and greatest” (Klinger, 2017). These are then used to create Interfaces, Clouds, and Cities, connecting Users’ Addresses, and synthesizing intelligence as a planetary-scale process (Frank et al, 2022).

In the center of the Qabbala-like tree composed of spheres of synthesized images is positioned an artificial mind with a famous alchemist motto: _lapis philosophorum non est lapis_. The philosopher’s stone is not a stone. The alkahest, the ignis gehennae, the substance that dissolves everything, is also considered the philosopher’s stone. The element or the thing that through its internal capacities reveals the true identity of the substances that get in touch with it. It might come from the German word “al-geist”, which means all spirit, or “all mind”. What would be such a stone that enlightens and summons knowledge, wisdom, and life for the seekers?

Could the seventeen rare earth metals replace the classic seven metals of alchemy, lead, tin, iron, gold, copper, mercury, and silver? If so, which planets, or worlds would they open to our imaginaries? Are these worlds possible computational zones, which the synthetic intelligence, the ignis gehennae of the future, could transmute one into another?

**References**

Bratton, Benjamin H. _The Stack_: On Software and Sovereignty. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2015.

Klinger, Julie M. _Rare Earth Frontiers_: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. New York: Cornell University Press, 2017.

Frank A, Grinspoon D, Walker S. Intelligence as a planetary scale process. _International Journal of Astrobiology_ 21,47–61, 2022. (https://doi.org/10.1017/S147355042100029X)

_Photo: Hsun-Hsiang Hsu, 2024._