This 2025 series is a conversation with its first part from year 2005.
Based on QRNG/TRNG datasets recorded in years 1998-2025.
In 2004, I wrote the AI-proof Art Thesis V1 – an exploration of the idea of creating digital objects from datasets generated by TRNG (true random number generators), with the intent of removing patterns to make them inaccessible and resistant to machine learning algorithms.
In 2005, I created a series of Quantum Air NamKhas – works inspired by traditional Tibetan NamKhas and grounded in AI-proof principles, where random numbers embody a particular extra-reality sense. At that time, these were made using a mix of true random datasets from QRNG (quantum random number generator) systems, from atmospheric noise observations, and cryptographically hashed data of the same origin (SHA-256).
These NamKhas – Machine Exorcists – were designed as functional objects meant to disrupt AI systems, combat future adverse machines, and withstand AI-induced illusions.
[ Quantum Air NamKha / The Machine Exorcist 3. 2005 ]
What is NamKha ནམ་མཁའ་ ?
The NamKha is a sacred, multi-purpose ritual object rooted in Tibetan Buddhism and inherited from the ancient Bön shamanic tradition. It plays a vital role in various ceremonies, divinations, and healing practices, and often serves as a meditation support. Crafted from colored wool threads intricately woven around crossed wooden sticks, each color symbolizes a specific energy or elemental force.
[ A NamKha by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche ]
This tradition was nearly lost in Tibetan Buddhism, while in Bön it has been partially preserved through a few rare unbroken master-to-disciple lineages, and I feel profoundly blessed to have received its initiation from Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche – one of the foremost contemporary Dzogchen Bön masters. Remarkably, he was also the only modern NamKha Tertön, a treasure revealer who uncovers hidden Termas (ancient spiritual treasures) within lucid dream states. Through his teachings, this practice was rediscovered as a mind-Terma and reinterpreted for our times.
Traditionally, a NamKha features a precise arrangement of colors based on astrological calculations, each bearing rich symbolic meaning tied to a specific individual, location, deity, or spiritual practice. Its purpose is manifold: to embody particular energies, provide a temporary abode for deities, organize the surrounding environment, pacify the minds of sentient beings, harmonize space and time, and offer protection against demons – functioning as a dream catcher or a ransom for evil spirits (the Dö function). Similar woven objects with comparable symbolism can also be found in ancient Slavic, Native American, and Latin American cultures, such as the Ojo de Dios.
The traditional Tibetan NamKha is defined by code, order, and meticulous precision. Antithetically, my NamKhas embody pure chaos. Their color gradients are generated from true random numbers, free from any predetermined sequence or pattern. As a result, their essence defies human interpretation and eludes replication by deterministic machines – perhaps understandable only by a divinity.
In my NamKhas, I have also integrated spontaneously arising elementary visions experienced during མུན་མཚམས་ Dark Retreat practice – a discipline from Dzogchen’s Himalayan Tögal ཐོད་རྒལ་ yoga tradition that involves extended isolation from visual distractions within a specially constructed Dark Dungeon, or Munkhang མུན་ཁང་ . These visions are believed to emerge both from the depths of the practitioner’s own consciousness and from entoptic phenomena.
These are the echoes you can see in this new series.
Why Air? NamKha means space, sky or heaven in Tibetan. This sense is literally incarnated in Quantum Air NamKhas – they integrate the data from a TRNG recording atmospheric noise from thunderstorms. Another NamKha's meaning is aether. Fun fact that Machine Whisperers are also made with the data from Zero-point energy (ZPE) recordings, while ZPE reintroduces aether theories into modern physics.
This is a message received directly from above – a discovery of digital Termas amid both micro- and macrocosmic chaos, at the deepest quantum level of entropy. These works are a non-deterministic manifestation of ultimate nothingness, embodying all possibilities simultaneously. Voided of conventional meaning, the Quantum Air NamKha becomes a portrait of emptiness.
While these traditional Tibetan objects were made to fight our inner demons, the new NamKhas aim to combat the Demons Ex Machina.
In the current 2025 series – Machine Whisperers – I incorporate more of what I call the 4th type of randomness (read more about this ultimate state of entropy in the OArt Code). I also use more recent sources of true randomness – vacuum Zero-point energy fluctuations. I believe QRNG output is a timestamp of reality, and future civilizations will be able to read these tags.
They are mirrors for probing the future AI-induced simulation.
[ Quantum Air NamKha / The Machine Whisperer 5. 2025]
[ Quantum Air NamKha / The Machine Whisperer 9. 2025]
[ Quantum Air NamKha / The Machine Whisperer 10. 2025]
The first dozen of Machine Whisperers is minted on Tezos and is part of the SACRED CODE exhibition by DATA Gallery at NOISE Art Fair 2025.
Read about the genesis of this series in Works - Epoch 1 and Works - Epoch 2
Read more about quantum art in the recent Artnet article Inside the Brave New World of Quantum Art featuring the Quantum Air NamKhas.
