Zach Blas is an artist and writer whose practice engages technologies of control and security with queer politics. Currently, he is a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Blas has exhibited and lectured internationally, recently at Jeu de Paume, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; e-flux, New York; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; and transmediale, Berlin. Blas’s recent works respond to biometric governmentality and network hegemony. Facial Weaponization Suite (2011–2014) consists of “collective masks” that cannot be detected as human faces by biometric facial recognition software. Contra-Internet (2014–present) explores subversions of and alternatives to the internet and is supported by a 2016 Creative Capital award in Emerging Fields. Contra-Internet will premiere as a solo exhibition at Gasworks in September 2017. Blas is also producing two books, Escaping the Face, an artist monograph (Sternberg Press and Rhizome, 2017), and Informatic Opacity: The Art of Defacement in Biometric Times (in preparation). His work has been written about and featured in Artforum, Frieze, Art Papers, Mousse Magazine, Wired, and Art Review, in which Hito Steyerl selected him as a 2014 FutureGreat.
Toying with the Future: AI, Fantasy, and Zach Blas's Icosahedron
“I used a children’s toy to respond to the childish masculinity and bravado of someone like Peter Thiel, but also to play with these words of ‘toying’ and ‘gaming.’ They’re toying with the world’s future.” Zach Blas discusses Icosahedron, a Walker-commissioned installation that references elves in The Lord of the Rings, Silicon Valley, and the Magic 8-Ball toy to critique today’s prevalent predictive technologies.
