Contra-internet | | atractivoquenobello

Zach Blas confronts the growing hegemony of the internet with a new queer science fiction film at Gasworks, Sep 21 – Dec 10

21 September 2017

news

Zach Blas is presenting solo exhibition Contra-Internet at London’s Gasworks, opening September 21 and running to December 10.

A newly commissioned queer science fiction film installation ‘Jubilee 2033’ will be premiered, as well as works in animation, vinyl text and other moving image and “confronts the growing hegemony of the internet.” The opening night will also feature a talk/tour by Blas.

The exhibition dives into the “accelerated capitalism, surveillance and control” that moves throughout the contemporary internet, and approaches science fiction and technology through a queer and feminist lens to sift through the past, present and future. Set in Silicon Valley in 2033, the work (and title) is a play off of Derek Jarman’s seminal queer film Jubilee (1973).

Visit the Gasworks website for details.**

Zach Blas talk @ Whitechapel Gallery, Apr 21

20 April 2016

news

Artist and lecturer Zach Blas will give a talk called ‘Contra-Internet’ at London’s Whitechapel Gallery on April 21.

Taking its starting point from a screen shot of a Facebook status in which Blas outlines a transparent ‘user’s agreement’, foreswearing “any biopolitical position as a user of the internet” and points to the himself as “physical-data-body-nodes within the naturalised capitalised internet system”, this coming Thursday, Blas will talk about the “emerging militancies and subversions of ‘the Internet’”.

Also to be expected is a discussion of dildotectonics (a theory adopted against ideals of heteronormative sex), utopian plagiarism, and social media exodus, all in order to pose a challenge to the “control logic” with which we look upon our time and bodies spent online.

The talk by Blas, who has recently given similar lectures at Goldsmiths and RCA art schools, is a part of Whitechapel Gallery’s Electronic Superhighway season events programme.

See the Whitechapel event page for more details.**

Zach Blas @ RCA, Mar 17

17 March 2015

news

Writer and artist Zach Blas will be hosting a workshop titled Contra-internet at the Royal College of Art tonight, March 17.

The lecture and workshop will take place alongside the Black Box Formula exhibition currently in the Henry Moore Gallery of the RCA which shows the works of five contemporary artists exploring the workings of ‘black box’ systems, i.e. any phenomena in which the input and output are known but the processes causing the output are not.

Blas’ lecture will explore what is described as “the contemporary aesthetico-political militancies, subversions and alternatives to the internet”, and will be followed by a discussion focusing on selected readings as well as a performative group exercise regarding the ‘Contra-sexual’ and the ‘Contra-internet’.

See the FB event page for details. **

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