Installation

Contra-Internet

2015–2019

Jubilee 2033 trailer

Consisting of a queer science fiction film installation that includes live action and CGI, blown glass sculptures, and a single edition publication, Contra-Internet confronts the transformation of the internet into an instrument for state oppression and accelerated capitalism. Invoking a practice of utopian plagiarism, Contra-Internet utilizes queer and feminist methods to speculate on internet futures and network alternatives.

Jubilee 2033, the short film centerpiece, is a re-imagining of scenes from filmmaker Derek Jarman’s 1978 queer punk film Jubilee, starring Susanne Sachsse and Cassils. Jubilee 2033 follows author Ayn Rand (Susanne Sachsse) and members of her Collective, including economist Alan Greenspan, on an acid trip in 1955. Guided by an artificial intelligence named Azuma, they are transported to a dystopian future Silicon Valley. As Apple, Facebook, and Google campuses burn, Azuma reveals that Ayn has become a celebrity philosopher to tech executives, as her writings foster their entrepreneurial spirit. Amidst the wreckage, Rand and The Collective are introduced to the internet, observe techies being captured by anti-campus groupies, and bear witness to the death of Silicon Valley elite. Once inside an occupied office of Palantir Technologies, the group encounters Nootropix (Cassils), a contra-sexual, contra-internet prophet, who lectures on the end of the internet as we know it. Seeking respite, Rand and The Collective find themselves at Silicon Beach, where chunks of polycrystalline silicon mix with sand and ocean.

Jubilee 2033 was nominated for a Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival. The film is distributed by Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. and Video Data Bank.

Contra-Internet: Jubilee 2033 is the prologue to Blas’s Silicon Traces trilogy, a series of moving image installations that contends with the beliefs, fantasies, and histories influential to Silicon Valley’s visions of the future.

Related Publication

What Makes Another World Possible?

Zach Blas: The Unknown Ideal

Paradox: The Body in the Age of AI

Imagined Borders
12th Gwangju Biennale

The End of the Internet (As We Knew It)

Contra-Internet

Contra-Internet Inversion Practice #1: Constituting an Outside (Utopian Plagiarism) (2015)

Contra-Internet Inversion Practice #2: Social Media Exodus (Call and Response) (2015)

Contra-Internet Inversion Practice #3: Modeling Paranodal Space (2016)

Credits

Contra-Internet is a project of Creative Capital
Solo Exhibition and Jubilee 2033 commissioned by Gasworks, London; Art in General, New York; and MU Eindhoven
Solo Exhibition produced by Gasworks
Contra-Internet Inversion Practice #3: Modeling Paranodal Space commissioned by Art in General
Contra-Internet lecture-performance commissioned by Rhizome
The End of the Internet (As We Knew It) commissioned by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Supported by a 2016 Creative Capital award in Emerging Fields, Arts Council England, and Thor Perplies
Jubilee 2033
Cast (in order of appearance)
- Ayn Rand, played by Susanne Sachsse
- Alan Greenspan, a member of The Collective, played by Dany Naierman
- Joan Mitchell, a member of The Collective, played by Lindsay Hicks
- Azuma, the artificial intelligence, played by Fusako Shiotani
- The Art Professor, played by Raquel Gutiérrez
- Nootropix, played by Cassils
Writer and Director: Zach Blas
Producer: Ali Roche
Producers: Tiffany L. Gray, Tara De Maro, and Jaclyn Amor, Extra Credit Studios
Director of Photography: Alison Kelly
Editor: Amy von Harrington
Associate Producers: Marcela Coto, John Palmer, and Martabel Wasserman
Composer: xin
Production Designers: Alexah Acuna and Kevin Gallo
Costume Designer: Lauren Warkentien
First Assistant Director: Sadé Clacken Joseph
First Assistant Camera: Mike Mast
Second Assistant Camera: Rob Ford
Second Unit Camera Operator: Jessica Gallegos
Gaffer: Blake Farmer
Grip: Andrew Joffe
Swing: Jim Gillespie
Sound Recording Engineers: Victoria Carrillo, Ada Douglas, and Fred Oliveira, Voxx Studios
Book Design: Leaky Studio
Book Fabrication: Bookworks
Glass Etching Design: Scott Kepford and Solveig Suess
Glass Fabrication: Silkwood Glass
Hair and Makeup Artist: Catherine Alfonso
Hair and Makeup Artist for Cassils: Mikayla Gottlieb
Assistant Hair and Makeup Artist for Cassils: Eliza Baron
Choreographer: Dany Naierman
Unit Production Manager: Rachel Wilson
Production Assistants: Savannah Bleu, Charles Eden, and Zak Frank
Visual Effects Supervisor: Justin Shell
Visual Effects: Harry Sanderson and Daniel Swan
Character Modeler and Rigger for Azuma: Mikkel Aabenhuus Sørensen
Supervising Sound Editor: Tom Sedgwick
Sound Designer and Assistant Sound Editor: Benjamin Hurd
Colorist: Jason Moffat
Assistant Editor: Cameron Dunbar
Translators: Fusako Shiotani, Yuki Matsuzaki, Turkuaz Benlioglu, and Raquel Gutiérrez
Voice Coach for Fusako Shiotani: Yuki Matsuzaki
Caterer: Nick Lorenz
Background Actors (in order of appearance)
- Dead Google Employees, played by
  - Jeff Cain
  - Kalvin Henely
  - Michelle Lee
  - Christopher O’Leary
  - Amanda Stojanov
- Dead Apple Genius, played by Scott Kepford
- Captured Techies, played by
  - Andrew Culp
  - Amy von Harrington
  - Eva Della Lana
  - Joshua Wagner
- Dead P***r T***l, played by Richard Stiasny
- The Anti-Campus groupies, played by
  - Alexah Acuna
  - Kevin Gallo
  - Christopher Joseph Lee
  - Victoria Lobo
  - Maria Noble
  - Martabel Wasserman
Shot on location at Greenery Studio in Burbank, Malibu, Moffett Field, San Jose, and Sun Valley, California
- Special Thanks
  - David Birkin
  - Jon Davies
  - Cybil Disobedient
  - Hosein Eyalati
  - Andrew Hibbard
  - Melody Jue
  - Omar Kholeif
  - Nadja Millner-Larsen
  - Robert Leckie
  - Mahan Moalemi
  - Bryce Renninger
  - Ali Sperling
  - Jasmina Tumbas
  - Helena Vilalta
Contra-Internet Inversion Practice #3: Modeling Paranodal Space
- 3D Modeling and Animation: Adam Sinclair

Contra-Internet

Credits

Related Events