{"id":9239,"date":"2016-09-23T10:38:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T14:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/?p=9239"},"modified":"2016-09-23T10:38:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T14:38:29","slug":"exploring-queer-technologies-with-artist-zach-blas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/exploring-queer-technologies-with-artist-zach-blas\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Queer Technologies with Artist Zach Blas"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a hetero-normative world, even things that first appear to operate outside of the limits of gender and sexuality, like technology, are often created within the traditional boundaries of sexual politics. Upon realizing technology was heteronormative, artist Zach Blas<\/a> decided to propose alternative queer theories for the performance of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201c…in regards to programming languages, why not question why plugs are gendered male and female?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Blas constructed technologies such as the \u201cGay Bomb,\u201d a technical manifesto which outlines what he defines as a \u201chow to of queer networked activism.\u201d Once he learned more about how the normative technological architectures and design platforms currently are, Blas, who has demonstrated the theoretical functionality of his work at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York, created a gay anti-programming language he named, \u201cTranscoder.\u201d In reading about the ways even electrical plugs are based in gender politics<\/span>, <\/b>Blas created a queer solution that defies the male\/female binary logic of gendered power adapters. In an era of Apple led innovation, these queer products are exhibited and deployed cheekily in an imaginative safe technological space, Blas calls, the \u201cDisingenuous Bar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Zach<\/p>\n

The groundbreaking conceptual artworks are known collectively as \u201cQueer Technologies.\u201d Blas\u2019 disruptive works have earned him the 2010 Prixxx Arse Elektronika Golden Kleene from The Kenan Institute for Ethics. We caught up with the artist right before he left New York to teach art at Goldsmiths, University of London, to talk about how he creates alternative ways of being for technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Zach
Disingenuous Bar, installation, Exit Strategies, New Wight Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles (2008)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How did you come up with the idea of Queer Technologies?<\/b><\/h4>\n

After I finished my studies in film, it already felt a little dated for me and my attention turned immediately to focusing on the media of our time. I just wanted to be much more engaged with urgent contemporary issues. At the time<\/span>, <\/b>film didn\u2019t seem like the best place for that, so I started studying the histories of electronic media<\/span>. <\/b>I have always had a long-standing interest in queer politics. There was so little work done at the relative to thinking about queerness in relation to actual technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never questioned the way technologies are made in terms of gender. <\/b><\/h4>\n

Yeah, with technology or science, we often don\u2019t question why things work the way they do. We just say things like, “Oh, that\u2019s technology and that\u2019s the way it works.” However, in regards to programming languages, why not question why plugs are gendered male and female? As I started studying technology<\/span>,<\/b> I discovered there were certain queer figures who were important in the history of digital computation. I wanted the work to be quite simple even though it\u2019s an instinctively challenging thing for most people to dive into. So I used the allegory of plugs because the entire civilized world of people have an interaction with them on a daily basis<\/span>.<\/b> But, some people want to know why these plugs are labeled as male and female? And, perhaps even further, why do plugs connect through heterosexual intercourse?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"EGC-3\"<\/p>\n

So this project is about rebranding technology?<\/b><\/h4>\n

\u201cQueer technologies\u201d started as a massive design and branding project. It took actual examples of all these technologies and subverted them. In theory people could encounter the products and understand what they are seeing. And of course people encounter technology as something consumable. It was important for me to follow that logic and develop products.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you imagine the \u201cGay Bomb\u201d technology to work?<\/b><\/h4>\n

When I was writing the gay bomb software manual I did a lot of research and what I came to discover was that there were two examples of \u201cGay Bombs\u201d that you could identify. One would be a militarized version of the \u201cGay Bomb\u201d that was an actual weapon the U.S. Air Force was developing in the 1990s. It was a bio-chemical weapon that would be deployed to turn enemy combatants gay. So it was pointedly this idea of gay shame. Enemy combats would become gay for each other and they would be so embarrassed that they would surrender. \u00a0In 2003, there was a bomb dropped in Afghanistan that had graffiti written on its side that said, \u201cHighjack this fag.\u201d Then, there was this other side of the gay bomb that tapped into queer art, where you find bombs that represent the larger societal threats to queerness. So I took existing ideas of the \u201cGay Bomb,\u201d and used them to create a queer manifesto.<\/span><\/p>\n