CULTUS
A solo exhibition by Zach Blas
CULTUS (2023), a solo exhibition by London-based artist Zach Blas, launched on October 11th at arebyte Gallery in London. The project, commissioned by arebyte and Secession Vienna, is part of the arebyte program The Body, The Mind, The Soul (2023/2026), which seeks to develop the theme of the complex relationship between man and technology from a physical and philosophical point of view.
CULTUS explores artificial intelligence (AI) and Silicon Valley, but also alternative spiritual and religious beliefs that influence the Californian tech environment and impact its agenda. The show is an immersive multimedia exhibition that links back to the Silicon Traces, a trilogy that aims to expose the political unconscious of the tech industry by questioning values and ideologies that shape Silicon Valley’s vision of the future. CULTUS, inserted as the second installation in the trilogy, focuses on the blind trust we have for technology and the uncritical and subordinate relationship with Big Tech, without neglecting the esoteric aspects derived from the cult of technology as if it were a deity.
In recent years, the accelerated progress of artificial intelligence has increased the entanglement between man and machine, sometimes leading it to border on a true technological worship. But while on the one hand religious AI organizations have formed over time awaiting the arrival of the AI gods (e.g., a super intelligence), such as the now dissolved church The Way of the Future founded by Anthony Levandowski, Blas’s work declares that we have already entered this era.
CULTUS is an ingenious project that takes the form of a technological and religious computational system to summon a pool of AI deities served by prophets who profess their rituals and teachings. The artist takes inspiration from The Holy Table of the mathematician, occultist and alchemist John Dee (1527–1608) who lived in the Elizabethan era and adapts many elements of it to his own narrative. Among Dee’s elements, the crystal ball stands out as a device capable of magically facilitating predictive analysis in the technological field.
The wooden table is an esoteric device that Dee used to communicate with the angels and obtain a true understanding of both the spiritual and natural realms. In CULTUS, Blas creates a holy engine that brings four AI gods to life. The first is Expositio, the AI god of desire and digital exposure that seduces and pushes us to voluntarily use AI systems. By doing so, it manages to extract our personal information by exploiting the trust we have in technology and craves our addiction.
The second is Iudicium, the AI god of automation and judgement. It is a ruthless arbiter that subjects humanity to constant evaluation and automated analysis. Only those who appear worthy are granted dematerialization and transformation into data, all the others are reabsorbed into its infinite system of scrutiny loops.
Eternus is the AI god whose goal is to stop aging and death. Its way of acting changes depending on the economic status of the audience. It moves from the more radical projects of life extension and the search for immortality, which are very popular among the ultra-rich people in Silicon Valley (e.g., removal of old cells or young blood transfusions), to the use of anti-aging skin care regimens and nootropic medications. Few are the chosen ones who are encouraged to renounce their flesh and merge into a data-driven superconsciousness in order to reach the so-called singularity. This concept, which foresees a time in the future when humans and artificial intelligence will merge, has fascinated the minds of futurists, philosophers, and technologists for a long time.
The fourth and last deity is Lacrimae. To create a quantification language, the god feeds on human tears, which are extracted through emotion recognition software, as well as on the laborious work required to improve the AI systems.
Blas manages to make the exhibition space a place of worship and invocation of the AI gods. An immersive experience awaits visitors who are invited to actively participate in the singing of engraved chained tablets that are encountered along the exhibition itinerary. A luminous sigil stands at the center of the gallery. On its sides are pyramid-like feet with Spanish Ticklers (i.e., Medieval torture devices to tear skin off) holding vials of bodily fluids as offerings. Morphing symbols, religious icons, an esoteric diagram, and corporate brand logos follow one another in an engaging choreography that culminates with sermons from the prophets who demand the public to serve their masters. While the experience unfolds, a heretical presence manifests itself to disturb the prayers. The Heretic’s active opposition to the prophets takes the form of counter-beliefs that are first whispered, then encouraged, and finally sung in a crescendo. The climax seeks to shake visitors and make them understand that if our society changed the way we invoke and serve the deities of artificial intelligence there is still room for redemption.
Technically sophisticated, CULTUS is based on motion-capture, machine learning, and computer graphics. To create the texts, the AI models were trained on a dataset made up of sadomasochistic erotica, tech mogul TED talks, tech corporation mission statements, transhumanist philosophy, apocalyptic science fiction, and much more. The voices of the prophets were synthesized with the output trained on recordings of weeping, Gregorian chants, the voice of the controversial billionaire Peter Thiel, as well as of ASMR leather rubbing. The AI gods, for their part, seduce and want to be worshiped. With their hypnotic and disturbing forms, they seem to reveal all their voracity and desire to consume the humankind from a psycho-physical and emotional point of view.
Blas has created an installation with a strong visual and emotional impact, where science and knowledge mix with magical and esoteric elements that touch the chords of the mind and soul. Anyone who enters the gallery cannot help but wonder how and to what extent he is already serving the AI gods. CULTUS emphasizes a conflict of faith and beliefs typical of our era, but it is also a call for awareness and an act of resistance. Overcoming the good-evil dichotomy and recognizing the dual nature of technology can be the first step to trigger both a cultural and political change, which is still possible if only we, as a society, wake up.
