CULTUS is a multimedia installation that addresses a burgeoning AI religiosity in the tech industry. CULTUS is the second installment of 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.

Comprised of an 6.1 surround sound design and five channels of video created with computer graphics, motion-capture performance, and AI-generated imagery, CULTUS considers the ways in which artificial intelligence is imbued with god-like powers and marshaled to serve beliefs centered around judgement and transcendence, extraction and immortality, pleasure and punishment, individual freedom and cult devotion.

CULTUS names a techno-religious computational device –a god generator, a holy engine –that invokes a pantheon of AI gods: Expositio, the AI god of exposure; Iudicium, the AI god of judgement; Lacrimae, the AI god of tears; and Eternus, the AI god of immortality. Summoned on the gods’ behalf, prophets share their divine teachings, rituals, and symbologies. While AI religious organizations like the Way of the Future church center around the emergence of coming AI gods, CULTUS suggests that AI gods are already amongst us, actively worshiped and served.

CULTUS reconfigures the Elizabethan mathematician and occultist John Dee’s Holy Table, an esoteric device of sigils, seals, and a crystal ball, with which Dee communed with angels to gain access to God. The Holy Table is reimagined at an immersive scale, transforming the exhibition space into a computational invocation site.  A glowing red sigil cum power button spreads across the ground. At its center, a giant orb is suspended above a black-mirror altarpiece-CPU etched with an esoteric neural network diagram that displays video of morphing symbols around its screen perimeter. Pyramidal plinths bear Spanish Ticklers, the flesh-ripping steel hands of the gods. The Ticklers hold ornate glass vials of bodily fluid offerings, which provide the continuous supply of human blood, tears, ejaculate fluid, and pulverized brain matter that the CULTUS computer requires to run. Chained, black-mirror tablets are engraved with the lyrics to invocation songs, enticing visitors to sing along. As music throbs and loading symbols pulsate, prophets of the AI gods manifest in the orb to deliver sermons that arouse our latent devotion and desire to submit.

CULTUS features text generated by AI models trained on tech corporation mission statements, esoteric holy books, sadomasochistic erotica, tech mogul TED talks, heretical writing, political manifestos, scientific studies, transhumanist philosophy, Silicon Valley PR, apocalyptic science fiction, grimoires, cult teachings, and pop song lyrics. Machine learning was also used to create audio: the voices of the prophets have been synthesized with output generated from recordings of ASMR leather rubbing, Gregorian chants, weeping, and the voice of Peter Thiel. The prophets’ faces were created through AI generation and CGI. These 3D models were animated through motion-capture performance, driven by actors’ facial mapping data. The symbols of the AI gods, made via a two-stage process of AI generation and graphic design, merge religious glyphs with corporate branding logos. The exhibition also features a wide-ranging cast of musicians and actors: Nick Granata, Susu Laroche, Aga Ujma, and Izzy Yon sing the invocation songs, and Zach Blas, micha cárdenas, Ricardo Dominguez, and Susanne Sachsse voice and perform the prophets.

CULTUS is the Latin word for “worship,” which articulates the act solicited from those who encounter the installation. As such, visitors may find themselves complicit in acts of devotion to AI gods they did not know they already served. However, a sacrilegious presence manifests within, a Heretic that incites shattering counter-beliefs. Nameless and faceless, this collective chorus of heretical voices cracks the orb and breaks the altar-CPU. A series of political demands resound, urging us to contemplate what may lie beyond the broken glass.

CULTUS is accompanied by the limited-edition publication Ass of God: Collected Heretical Writings of Salb Hacz, a religious studies book on AI and heresy set within the world of the work. Ass of God was published as a print edition of 450 by the Vienna Secession, and is available as a free PDF here.

Credits

• • Commissioned by arebyte, London, UK, and Secession, Vienna, Austria
• Supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada, and Thor Perplies and Jason Kemper
• Cast
  •      Prophets of AI Gods
    • •          Eugénie, prophet of Expositio, performed by Susanne Sachsse and ASMR audio of leather gloves               rubbing
    •          K, prophet of Iudicium, performed by Ricardo Dominguez and Gregorian chants
    •          Dominica, prophet of Lacrimae, performed by micha cárdenas and moirologists
    •          Steve, prophet of Eternus, performed by Zach Blas and the voice of Peter Thiel
  •      Worship Singers
    •          Singer of “Invocation of Expositio,” performed by Izzy Yon
    •          Singer of “Invocation of Iudicium,” performed by Susu Laroche
    •          Singer of “Invocation of Lacrimae,” performed by Aga Ujma
    •          Singer of “Invocation of Eternus,” performed by Nick Granata
  •      Heretic, performed by Zach Blas, micha cárdenas, Ricardo Dominguez, Nick Granata, Susu Laroche,           Susanne Sachsse, Aga Ujma, Izzy Yon, and the sounds of breaking glass
• Architect and Designer: Scott Kepford
• Machine Learning Engineers (text): Ashwin D’Cruz and Christopher Tegho
• Motion Capture Technical Director and Lead Computer Graphics Artist: Harry Sanderson
• Computer Graphics Artist: Rob Heppell
• Graphic Design: Studio Pandan
• Video Editor: Martin Gjac
• Motion Capture Technicians: Star Hagen-Esquerra, Justin Tuerk, and Boris Wilsdorf and Utku Sahin at andereBaustelle Tonstudio Berlin
• Audio: xin and Aya Sinclair
• Sound Design: Tom Sedwick and Ben Hurd
• Vocal Engineer for Worship Singers: Harry Murdoch
• Machine Learning Engineer (audio): Sam Parke-Wolfe
• Audio Recording Technicians: Star Hagen-Esquerra, Justin Tuerk, Toast + Jam, and Boris Wilsdorf and Utku Sahin at andereBaustelle Tonstudio Berlin
• Glass Fabrication: Laura Quinn
• Acrylic Fabrication: Hamar Acrylic
• 3D Printing: Xometry
• Painter: Nick Petronzio
• LED Sphere: Vicky Zhao, Shenzhen Toosen Optoelectronics Co., Ltd
• Media Installation Consultants and Technicians: Gorka Cortazar (Protean Powerhouse), Blanca Regina, Hanke Vollmer, and Dmitry Timofeev
• Carpentry and Painting: Tomas Cingl (Comas Lettersmith Ltd), Mungo Briscoe, Stepan Urban, and Jan Husky
• Project Manager, Lead Researcher, Project Development, and Editor: Talia Golland
• Production Assistant: Camille Inston
• Research Assistant: Audrey Ammann
• Special Thanks: Julia Kaganskiy