Does an AI God Have an Ass? A Lecture by Zach Blas
Wed, June 17, 2026
6:30 pm
Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2026 (Whitney Museum of American Art, March 8–August 2026). Zach Blas, CULTUS, 2023. Photograph by Darian DiCanno/BFA.com. © BFA 2026
Tickets
Tickets are required ($10 adults; $8 members, seniors, and students). Capacity is limited; visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance.
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The Susan and John Hess Family Theater is equipped with an induction loop and infrared assistive listening system. Accessible seating is available.
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Floor 3, Theater
In the lecture-performance Does an AI God Have an Ass? Whitney Biennial 2026 artist Zach Blas traces a surprising historical thread from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes to contemporary AI culture in Silicon Valley. Blas examines how the tech industry’s religious fantasies about artificial intelligence erase embodiment and make invisible the human labor that underlies it. This piece connects to Blas’ installation currently on display in the Biennial, CULTUS (2023), which is part two of his Silicon Traces trilogy about the fantasies and ideologies that influence the tech industry’s drive toward domination.
Following the performance, Blas is joined in conversation by writer, curator, and critic Amy Hale to discuss his practice and how we contend with the religiosity undergirding Silicon Valley’s power structures.
Please note that this program will include sensitive material appropriate for visitors ages 18+.
Speakers
Zach Blas is an artist, writer, and filmmaker whose practice contends with computational technologies, their industries, and the powers that constitute and animate them. Blas has exhibited in international exhibitions including the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2022) and 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018), and presented solo exhibitions at Vienna Secession (2024); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2020); Abierto x Obras, Matadero Madrid (2018); and Gasworks, London (2017). His publications include the artist book Ass of God: Collected Heretical Writings of Salb Hacz (Vienna Secession and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2024) and the artist monograph Unknown Ideals (Sternberg Press and Haus für Medienkunst Oldenburg, 2021). With Melody Jue and Jennifer Rhee, he is co-editor of Informatics of Domination (Duke University Press, 2025). Blas is an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies in the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto.
Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic and an Honorary Research Fellow with Falmouth University in Cornwall, UK. She has written widely on the surrealist occultist Ithell Colquhoun, and served as academic advisor to the 2025 Colquhoun retrospective at Tate St. Ives and Tate Britain. Publications include Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, Sex Magic: Diagrams of Love, and the edited collection Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses. Scholarly and critical essays have been published by Tate, Burlington Contemporary, Art UK, The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Correspondences Journal and others. Beyond the Supernatural: Magic in Contemporary Art is forthcoming from Tate Publishing in 2026.
