Zach Blas (American, b. 1981) is an artist, filmmaker and writer whose practice spans moving image, computation, installation and science fiction.,,He engages the materiality and politics of digital technologies. His work draws out the philosophies and imaginaries around artificial intelligence, biometric facial recognition, predictive policing and the internet. He lives and works in Toronto and London.
In Facial Weaponization Suite (2012–14), Blas ran public workshops in which masks were made from the aggregated facial data of participants. The Fag Face Mask was generated from the biometric facial data of many queer men and responds to studies claiming that sexual orientation can be determined through facial recognition.His project Contra-Internet, shown at Gasworks in London in 2017, centres on the film Jubilee 2033, in which the author Ayn Rand is transported to a Silicon Valley of the near future.A sequel, The Doors (2019), uses machine learning–generated imagery to envision a psychedelic trip on nootropics.
im here to learn so :)))))) (2017), made with Jemima Wyman, revives Microsoft's Twitter chatbot Tay, who appears as a 3D avatar.,CULTUS was shown at arebyte Digital Art Centre in London in 2023 and in Blas's solo exhibition at the Vienna Secession in 2024.,,It is the second instalment of the Silicon Traces trilogy and addresses a burgeoning AI religiosity in the tech industry.,The installation reimagines the Holy Table of the Elizabethan mathematician and occultist John Dee at an immersive scale.Drawing on queer strategies of critique, Blas satirizes the occultism of founder culture through imagery of fetish and ritual shaming.
Blas was included in the 12th Berlin Biennale in 2022 and the 82nd Whitney Biennial in 2026.Blas's work at the Whitney was grouped with works addressing belief systems and algorithmic systems.His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul. His monograph Unknown Ideals was published by Sternberg Press and Haus für Medienkunst Oldenburg in 2021. He was a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, from 2015 to 2021 and became an associate professor of visual studies at the University of Toronto in 2021.
