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 appropriates 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.

• Blas, Zach. 2018. Contra-Internet. [Art Object]
• Blas, Zach. 2016. Contra-Internet. e-flux journal, 74, ISSN 2164-1625 [Article]
• Blas, Zach. 2014. “Contra-Internet Aesthetics”. In: Omar Kholeif, ed. You Are Here: Art after the Internet. Manchester: Cornerhouse Books, pp. 86-97. ISBN 9780956957177 [Book Section]
• Blas, Zach. 2018. The Jubilee of 2033. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 24(4), ISSN 1064-2684 [Article]

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/27318