<nettime> Zach Blas: Metric Mysticism

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

bwo Barbara Strebel, with thanks.

Full story:  
http://www.e-flux.com/program/170578/lecture-performance-zach-blas-nbsp-metric-mysticism/

In this lecture-performance, artist Zach Blas gazes into the crystal 
balls of Silicon Valley and charts the transmutation of big data into a 
magical substance that predicts—and polices—our future.

Focusing on the appropriation of mysticism and magic by Silicon Valley 
start-ups and governmental surveillance agencies alike, Blas suggests 
that the crystal ball, a transparent device that permits one to see into 
the future, has come to stand in as a paradigm for how tech 
entrepreneurs prefer to imagine the algorithmic processing of 
information.

Palantir Technologies, it is suggested, is at the forefront of such 
metric mysticism. Co-founded by Peter Thiel—and described by some as the 
most powerful machine for spying ever devised—the controversial data 
analytics company appropriates the palantir, a fictional all-seeing 
crystal ball used by wizards in The Lord of the Rings. Here, in the 
palantir, data becomes the new absolute, determining what the future is 
and how it should be controlled.

Yet what if one were to gaze not into a crystal ball but rather a chunk 
of silicon? Not transparent glass but rather an opaque, geologic 
material at the very core of digital technology. Blas asks, against the 
prediction of the future, if redirecting our gaze can offer a way to 
better comprehend the crisis of the present?

Zach Blas is an artist and writer whose practice confronts technologies 
of capture, security, and control. He is currently a Lecturer in Visual 
Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London and has lectured and 
exhibited internationally, recently at IMA Brisbane, the Van Abbemuseum, 
Eindhoven and ICA Singapore.
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