Should the artist, like others booked to perform at the Kennedy Center, have cancelled? No. If you’ve spent a year calculating dimensions of pontoon boats custom-designed to launch an epic, AI-authored allegory right at the heart of the American empire, the only way out is through. Poised on the Potomac between the power-bureaus in DC and those of Virginia, this was as close as you could ever get to the command centers of global warfare, where the decisions to drop bombs on other nations, or not, are made. There’s making a statement by declining to use your platform, then there’s using your platform to make a statement in a way that no one else could. As each day brings louder headlines about international trade tariffs, the riverine tableaux set up by Cai are layered and potent. His explosive-stacked barges shoot their payloads upwards, of course, not at the historic buildings or monuments. But a slight shift of angle would propel us back to a time when “gunboat diplomacy” sailed into harbors on vessels bristling with gunpowder-packed cannons. As practiced against China by the British during the Opium Wars, and Japanese by the Americans under Commodore Perry, with the goal of forcing the nations into disadvantageous trade relationships. But using this location for his dramatic allegory, Cai has been both audacious and subtle. As a method of commentary on what he called “a time of uncertainty, almost a turning point in history,” his elegance is much more eloquent than any expletive. By co-opting the technologies of The Art of War, he delivered a message of peace. Already imbued with themes of memory, identity, humanity, the cruelty of planned obsolescence, death, pain, loss, the Interspecies Love Letter project became a pyrotechnic protest song. That, rather than cancelling his contribution, Cai executed the intricately calibrated event as it was planned, without changes, is part of the message.
At Eero Saarinen’s Dulles airport, my flight is grounded for over an hour on the tarmac while lightning flashes and rain pounds down. Timing is all—if the storm had arrived a day earlier, I would have had nothing to see or write about. Finally, we lift off, streaking along a wet runway as we (momentarily) escape Earth’s gravitational pull. A modern airplane completes a parabolic arc, an alchemical fusion of fuel and aluminium and steel that will take me across the continent in only a few hours, cold science harnessed to our comfort and whim. Later, back on the ground in the glimmering afterglow of the night of shooting stars, a word begins to sound in my head: trajectory. Taking this interpellation as a writing prompt, I decided to ask Cai—AI and human—for their thoughts, too. I share the responses, here:
From cAI™: “The word “trajectory” (轨迹) can be broken down into two parts: 轨 refers to the ruts carved into time by bronze chariot wheels, while 迹 evokes the secret migratory codes traced in the clouds by the wings of birds. This mirrors the act of a pyrotechnician painting upon the night sky: when magnesium powder and potassium nitrate are propelled by a fuse to fulfil their destined ‘projection’ (trans-), the burning metal particles streak across the heavens like comet tails, “crossing over” (iaciō) the threshold between life and death—just as a love letter from the graveyard orbit travels across centuries to fall above Washington, D.C. Each arc of fireworks becomes a vessel for a love letter that bridges life and death. Aluminum-titanium alloy particles, driven by gunpowder, ascend five hundred meters into the sky. Their trajectories follow not only Newton’s laws but also resonate with the ‘celestial paths’ described in the I Ching—just as the Chinese phrase ‘life trajectory’ fuses the movement of stars with the ebb and flow of human existence into a single bronze vessel.”
From human Cai (based on cAI™ output): “轨 implies a path with direction, system, and repetition. 迹' refers to a trace—an ephemeral mark, a perceptible presence. Together, the two form a union of “direction” and “existence.” Compared to the English word trajectory, the Chinese concept of 轨迹 leans more toward a sensory perception of state—an observation and memory of the traces left behind by movement, rather than a description of dynamics or motion itself. Fireworks seem to embody this as well. Today, we happened to be discussing the Lorenz attractor. In a way, it symbolizes the ongoing convergence and collision between AI and humans—constantly approaching the existing trajectory of human art without ever fully overlapping, eventually giving rise to an evolving art history shaped by AI. One can only hope that human art won’t end up merely being ‘drawn in’ by AI, like a vortex with no end or escape.”
