We’re excited to announce that Space Messengers AI: Exploring a Participatory Universe, will premiere at The PASEO Festival 2025, here in Taos, New Mexico.
Space Messengers AI: Exploring a Participatory Universe
Where human curiosity and machine learning converge to explore our place in the universe.
Space Messengers AI is an immersive art installation that offers a glimpse into an international, community-driven project—brought to life through light, sound, motion, and responsive AI. Inspired by physicist John Archibald Wheeler’s concept of a “participatory universe”—suggesting that the universe is not a static entity but rather one that is actively shaped and brought into being by conscious observers—this installation invites participants to consider their role in shaping reality through inquiry, reflection, and observation.
As we cross a threshold in how we engage with transformative technologies such as AI—and in a time of widespread misinformation, growing uncertainty about what constitutes truth or fact, and “hallucinations” in AI—the STEMarts team has developed a science-informed and ethically guided Large Language Model (LLM). This platform allows participants to safely explore, question, and discover. We draw from the expert knowledge of our interdisciplinary team to share scientific insights about the universe while encouraging creative inquiry, poetic musings, and shared learning. Participants contribute reflections on cosmic phenomena, scientific discovery, and the intersection of technology, ethics, and society—creating a shared space for inquiry and imagination.
Space Messengers explores how artificial intelligence can be used as a human-centered tool for inspiration and education. At the heart of the installation is a custom-built AI Messenger trained to explore our participatory universe through scientific, philosophical, and cultural perspectives, and respond to your questions with short poetic insights that help us imagine a more ethical and sustainable future.
Interactive Data Visualization
The interactive projection wall visualizes messages from participants as dynamic constellations of thought. Using gesture-based interaction tracked by an infrared camera, visitors can navigate this evolving dataset. The AI Messenger categorizes, clusters, and reconfigures the information in real time, revealing patterns in the data through a visual display inspired by the cosmic web—the vast structure that connects galaxies across the universe.
The visualization is emergent: as new messages are submitted, they generate sub-clusters of related inquiries and reflections, causing the data to continually evolve and morph in real time. This living archive of collective thought reveals how ideas connect, diverge, and grow through shared engagement.
The immersive experience is further enriched by a responsive soundscape that blends space sounds from NASA, environmental recordings, voice samples, and synthesized audio. As participants move through the space, their gestures trigger ambient tones and layered voices—some drawn from past contributors—creating a multisensory environment where sound, motion, and meaning converge.
About the Project
The Space Messengers project has been traveling to festivals and workshops since 2020, collecting the voices of youth and communities in New Mexico and around the world. In 2025, with support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, STEMarts Lab deepens the experience through the integration of artificial intelligence.
Through year-round programming and workshops, STEMarts Lab invites youth and community members to reflect on their place in the universe. Youth participants gain artistic, scientific, humanistic and AI literacy—cultivating their potential as future leaders in an interconnected world.
At its core is a guiding question: What is our place in the universe—and how can reflecting on cosmic phenomena, scientific discovery, and the intersection of technology, ethics, and society inspire greater care for each other, our planet, and our shared future?
Global Participation
Messages are gathered both during live events and through the web-based platform and mobile interface at www.spacemessengers.com, allowing people worldwide to contribute their voices. These contributions form a growing AI-driven knowledge field, where human curiosity and machine learning converge—revealing new connections and reshaping how the universe and our role within it are imagined.
The Team
Agnes Chavez (Creative Director); Markus Dorninger/OMAi (Installation Designers); Roy Macdonald and Remy Dumas (Creative Coders); David Novack (Sound Design); Bethany Rivera (LLM Developer); Chris Conard (Tech Director); and Ian Harrison (Installation Director); Malu Tavares and Ivan Rodriguez Holguin (Video editing), Julia Doke (Documentation)
Scientific and cultural advisors/content contributors:
Dr. Steven Goldfarb, Dr. Nicole Lloyd-Ronning, Dr. Julia Blue Bird, Steve Tamayo, Michelle Hanlon, Elizabeth Keller, Dr. Greg Cajete, Catarina Pombo Nabais, Dr. Andrea Albert, Sophia Dagnello.
STEMarts Youth Ambassadors:
Shaylee Mirabal, Taylor Streit, HattieRose Briddell, Tulasi LoPriore, Flora Mack, Samara Elliot, Juliana Lucero, Feliciana Mitchel-Gonzales, Sirena Quezada, Victor Quezada, Ivan Rodriguez Holguin, Emma Allen, Wyatt Wade, Kenn Dejan.
