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Zach Blas is an artist and theorist working at the intersections of networked media, queerness, and the political.

EDUCATION

2014  PhD, Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, Visual Studies, Women’s Studies, Duke University
2009  Non-Degree Graduate Studies, Rhetoric / Film & New Media, University of California Berkeley
2008  Master of Fine Art, Design | Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles

  • Thesis: Queer Technologies (MFA archive, project site)
  • Committee: Rebeca Méndez, N. Katherine Hayles, Sean Dockray, Judith Halberstam, Ricardo Dominguez

2006  Post – Baccalaureate Certificate, Art and Technology Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2004  Bachelor of Science, Film and Philosophy, Cum Laude, Boston University

PROJECTS

Queer Technologies
Speculative
The Public School Durham

EXHIBITIONS

2013
Trans Technology: Circuits of Culture, Self, and Belonging, Rutgers University

2012
Film / Video Program, Cities | Bodies | Action: The Politics of Passion in the Americas, 8th Encuentro, The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico City, Mexico

2011
DeOrigenBélico: La Revuelta / OfWarOrigin: The Revolt, Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia, Venezuela
instruction manual, OpenSource Festival, Düsseldorf, Germany
Speculative, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (co-curator)
Impractically, Practical, Take My Picture Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
alt:Queer, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool, UK
Many Times, Many Worlds, ARTifact Gallery, University of California San Diego
Getting Closer, Fe Arts Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
Somatic SENSOR, Highways, Santa Monica, CA

2010
Trial by Form, collaboration with Mark B. N. Hansen and Pinar Yoldas, John Hope Franklin Center New Media Space, Duke University
What is Good Art?, Fredric Jameson Gallery, Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University
Online Gallery, Adaptive Actions
CHAT: A Digital Arts and Humanities Festival, UNC Chapel Hill

2009
Online Gallery, CTRL+W33D
File Electronic Language International Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil

2008
Exit Strategies, New Wight Gallery, University of California Los Angeles
Still: Prints from our Process, Bermant Gallery, University of California Los Angeles

2007
Graduate Work from the Department of Design | Media Arts, Experimental Digital Arts Center, University of California Los Angeles
Online Gallery, University of California Digital Arts Research Network

2006
Palm, New Wight Gallery, University of California Los Angeles
Visual Music, Broad Art Center, University of California Los Angeles
Graduate Exhibition, G2, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Design Body, LG Space, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Open Architecture, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

2005
Projects from the Berwick Research Institute’s Artist in Research Program, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts

2004
Multimedia Installation, Video Installation Studio, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
Signals, Reception, and Reproduction: Searching for Identity in Technology, Griggs Place Artist Space, Allston, MA

2003
i am your friend, Film Production Screening, Boston University

CONFERENCES

2012
Fag Face, or How to Weaponize Your Face: On Facial Recognition and Escaping the Face, Digital Identity Panel, CHAT Festival, Duke University
s-1: Speculative Sensation Lab, Physical Computing and Interactivity Panel, CHAT Festival, Duke University
Queerness Panel (chair), Marxism and New Media Conference, The Program in Literature, Duke University

2011
Queer Viralities: On Technologies and Weapons of Queerness, in/compatible.research PhD Workshop, Vilém Flusser Archive, Universität der Künste, transmediale, Berlin, Germany
Queer Viral Aesthetics: Control and Resistance Panel (chair), Imagination, Reparation, Transformation, American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD
Critical Code Studies Symposium, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Opening Queerness, Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium I, The New School, New York, NY (video)
Queer Technologies, Viral Networks, Political Tactics, Thinking Network Politics: Methods, Epistemology, Process, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

2010
GRID: Queer Technologies’ Viral Aesthetics, Longing in the Age of New Media, University of Southern California Comparative Literature Symposium, Los Angeles, CA

2009
GRID: Viral Contagions of Homosexuality and the Queer Aesthetics of Infection, Decodings: 23rd Annual Conference, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Atlanta, Georgia
Gay Bombs: Remapping Topologies of Queerness, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Gay Bombs: Exploding Topologies of Queerness and Sovereignty, The Third Queer Studies Symposium, The Enkidu International Society for Cultural History and Cultural Studies, Mexico City, Mexico
Gay Bombs: Exploding Topologies of Queerness and Sovereignty, The Politics of Crisis, 4th Annual Comparative Literature Graduate Conference, University of California Irvine

2008
Gay Bombs: Re-manufacturing Paranoid Logic and Networks, Getting Obsessive: Culture and Excess, University of Southern California English Department Conference, Los Angeles, CA
transCoder and theSoftQueerBody, Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Philadelphia, PA

2007
transCoder: Queer Programming Anti-Language, Code: 21st Annual Conference, Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, Portland, Maine
transCoder and theSoftQueerBody, Los Angeles Queer Studies Conference, University of California Los Angeles
What is Queer Technology?, International Association for Media and Communication Research, Paris, France
What is Queer Technology?, Behind the Rainbow: Queer Studies Symposium, The Enkidu International Society for Cultural History and Cultural Studies, Mexico City, Mexico

ARTIST PRESENTATIONS

2012
Queer Viral Aesthetics: Resistant Practices in Media Art and Philosophy Panel, South by Southwest Interactive Festival, Austin, Texas
Queer Technologies, Hacktivism, and Other Sciences of the Oppressed, New Paradigms / Necessary Positions: Activism and Interventions in Latin American Visual Arts, UNC – Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Queer Technologies, Viral Aesthetics, and Hypertrophic Transformation, Momentum: Women, Art, and Technology Panel, College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, CA
Queer Technologies, Commercialising Eros panel, eSource sex, transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
Fag Face, or How to Weaponize Your Face: On Facial Recognition and Escaping the Face, reSource research practices panel, transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany

2011
Queer Viralities: Resistant Practices in Media Art and Philosophy Panel (chair), International Symposium on Electronic Art, Istanbul, Turkey
Speculative Panel (moderator), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Science Fiction and Speculative Thought as Social Critique and Social Action Panel, ARTifact Gallery, University of California San Diego

2010
Queer Technologies & Spaces of Acceleration, Arse Elektronika Festival, San Francisco, CA

2009
Queer Technologies & Queer Capitalism, Upgrade! Tijuana
Queer Technologies, GRID, and Viral Aesthetics, Sex and Sexuality Panel, Digital Arts and Culture, University of California Irvine
Queer Technologies: Toward a Viral Aesthetic, Processes and Aesthetics of Digital Art, MediaModes Conference, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

2008
Queer Technologies, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Singapore

2007
What is Queer Technology?, Subtle Technologies Festival, University of Toronto
Methodological Approaches to Formulating a Queer Technology, Epicenter: University of California Digital Arts Research Network Faculty and Graduate Research Exchange, University of California Riverside

PUBLICATIONS

forthcoming
“Virus, Viral,” Women Studies Quarterly
“Reality is Aesthetic and Political: Editor’s Preface,” The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities by Micha Cárdenas (co-editor)
“Hidden Writing: Cyclonopedia by Reza Negarestani,” American Book Review
“GRIDs, Gay Bombs, and Viral Aesthetics: Queer Technologies’ Networked Assemblages,” Feminst and Queer Information Studies Reader
“Queer Darkness,” Depletion Design: A Glossary of Network Ecologies

articles and essays
2012
Queerness, Openness, Leper Creativity: Cyclonopedia Symposium

2011
Weapons for Queer Escape, Schlossplatz³, Issue 10 Identity (Crisis)
Fag Face, Version

2009
GRID: Viral Contagions in Homosexuality and the Queer Aesthetics of Infection, Proceedings of the 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference – After Media: Embodiment and Context

2008
Queer Technologies: The Imitation Game (for Gendered Interstice), a mínima 23

art publications
2012
“On Queer Viralities,” World of the News: The world’s greatest peer-reviewed newspaper of in/compatible research, transmediale festival

2011
Speculative Exhibition Catalog, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (co-editor and contributor, “Uses and Failures: Documents of a Collective That Does Not Exist”)

2010
Queer Technologies, Adaptive Actions Madrid

online engagements
2011
Sex Networks: A Response to Katrien Jacobs, Request for Comments, networkpolitics.org

2009
Queer & Feminist New Media Spaces, HASTAC
Critical Code Studies Working Group
Viral Economies: Hacktivating Design, empyre: soft-skinned space

book reviews
2011
Trans Desire by Micha Cárdenas, e-misférica 7.2 After Truth: Justice, Memory, and Related Aftermaths

interviews & conversations
2011
“On Electronic Civil Disobedience: Interview with Ricardo Dominguez,” Reclamations Journal, Issue 4

2010
Jacob Gaboury, Interview with Zach Blas, rhizome.org

2009
In Conversation with Chris O’Leary, Future and Dust Exhibition Catalog, Arts Learning Institute

FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, AND GRANTS

2012
Summer Research Fellowship, Duke University

2011
Travel Award, Women’s Studies, Duke University

2010
Pre-Dissertation & Dissertation Research Travel Award, Duke University
Prixxx Arse Elektronika Golden Kleene Recipient, Arse Elektronika Festival
Franklin Humanities Institute Interdisciplinary Working Groups Grant, Duke University
Gallery Choice Award, What is Good Art?, Fredric Jameson Gallery, Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University

2009
The Graduate Program in Literature PhD Fellowship, Duke University
Visual Studies Initiative Summer Grant, Duke University

2008
Rhetoric / Film & New Media PhD Fellowship, University of California  Berkeley
Graduate Travel and Research Grant, University of California Los Angeles

2007
Graduate Travel Grant, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program, University of California Los Angeles

2006
Teaching Assistant Fellowship, Department of Design | Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles

2005
Graduate Grant, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2000
Undergraduate Academic Scholarship, Boston University

RESIDENCIES AND WORKSHOPS

2012
The Politics of Fiction Working Group, Cities | Bodies | Action: The Politics of Passion in the Americas, 8th Encuentro, The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico City, Mexico

2011
Devisualize Residency and Workshop, Medialab Prado, Madrid, Spain
On the Commons; or, Believing-Feeling-Acting Together, Banff Research in Culture Residency, The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada

2010
Art and Resistance Summer Residency, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

TEACHING

Fall 2011
Instructor, Art, Media, and Interventions After the Internet, The Program in Literature, Duke University

Fall 2010
Teaching Assistant, Artificial Life, Culture, and Evolution, Information Science + Information Studies, Duke University, Professor Nicholas Gessler

Spring 2010
Lab Instructor, Media Theory, Literature & Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University, Professor Mark B. N. Hansen

Spring 2009
Reader, Jean-Luc Godard, Rhetoric and Film & Media, University of California Berkeley, Professor Kaja Silverman

Summer 2008
Instructor, Queer Technologies, The Public School Los Angeles, Telic Arts Exchange, Los Angeles, CA

Winter 2007 – Spring 2008, Teaching Assistant, Design | Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles

GUEST LECTURES

2011
Processing Workshop, Machinic Literature, The Graduate Program in Literature, Duke University, Professors N. Katherine Hayles and Anne Garreta

2009
Divided Audiences, Performance and Television, Center for New Media & Theater, Dance, Performance Studies, UC Berkeley, Professor Abigail de Kosnik

2007
Semiotics, Grammatology, Dynamics, Dynamic Typography, D|MA, UCLA, Lecturer Peter Cho

UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTS AND SERVICE

2011 – 2012
Organizing Committee, Marxism and New Media Conference, The Program in Literature, Duke University

2011 – present
Graduate Student Representative, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, New York University

2010 – present
Lab Member, s-1: Speculative Sensation Lab, directed by Mark B. N. Hansen, Duke University

2010 – 2011
Co-Organizer (with N. Katherine Hayles, Jennifer Rhee, Priscilla Wald), Speculative Aesthetics Interdisciplinary Working Group, Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University

2009 – 2010
Web Design Consultant, The Program in Literature, Duke University

2009 – 2011
Research Assistant, Professor Mark B. N. Hansen, Duke University

2009
Research Assistant, Professor N. Katherine Hayles, Duke University
Graduate Research Assistant, Opinion Space, directed by Ken Goldberg, Berkeley Center for New Media, University of California Berkeley

2008 – 2009
Graduate Committee, Berkeley Center for New Media, University of California Berkeley
Graduate Committee and Web Design Team, Queer Bonds Conference, University of California Berkeley

2006 – 2007
Media Arts Librarian, MARS (Media Arts ReSource), Design|Media Arts Department, University of California Los Angeles

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

2011 – present
Contributing Editor, Version

2010 – present
Co-Founder and D.A.N. committee member, The Public School Durham
Peer Reviewer, Digital Humanities Quarterly

2010
Reviewer of Art Papers, SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition, Los Angeles, CA

2005 – 2006
Media Producer, Archivist, Distribution Assistant, Video Data Bank, Chicago, IL

2005
Gallery Attendant, Archivist, Exit Art, New York, NY

2004
Videographer, Artist Assistant, Berwick Research Institute, Roxbury, MA

2003
Office, Development, and Production Assistant, Sarah Radclyffe Productions, London, UK

MEMBERSHIP

2011 – present
American Studies Association
College Art Association

2010 – present
New Media Caucus
Queer Caucus for Art

2007 – present
Cruft – Art, Technology, Activist Group (co-founder)
Critical Code Studies
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2012
“Zach Blas and Queer Technologies,” Social Media Project: A research project of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality

2011
Bruce Sterling, “Design Fiction: ‘Speculative’ exhibition, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions,” Beyond the Beyond, Wired
Mattia Cassalegno, “The ‘Speculative’ Exhibition: May Fiction Redefine Reality?” Digimag 68 October 2011

2010
Matthew E. Milliken. “D.I.Y. school for adults ‘opens’ here.” The Herald-Sun
Jacob Gaboury. “Interview with Zach Blas.” rhizome.org
Chris Crews. “Patriotic Penetration: Gay Bombs, Queer Times, and Homonationalist Assemblages,” Canon Magazine
Mark Marino. “Disrupting Heteronormative Codes: When Cyclons in Slash Goggles Ogle AnnaKournikova”

2008
Bruce Sterling. “Critical Code Studies,” Wired Blog Network
Julian Bleeker. “Exit Strategies,” Near Future Laboratory Blog