Where Art & Technology Meet to Create, in San Francisco

In a city dominated by AI billboards and startup slogans, discussions around tech have started to feel commercial - and awfully one-sided. 

At The Intersection of Art and Technology, a new gallery and workshop space near Union Square, we are invited back into the conversation. Using custom software, computers, touchscreens, and more as their medium, featured artists ask visitors to reimagine how we view and relate to technology. 

“[The art] provides a very interesting perspective on how technology can be utilized to express yourself,” said one attendee at their inaugural exhibit, Vincent Carrancho. 

To Carrancho’s point, one piece, Andy Rappaport's "Not [Text]", explored the human compulsion to find patterns, even when none are present. Viewers put on a pair of headphones, listened, and watched as an AI image generator pulled meaning from auditory gibberish. 

Another piece asked viewers to reimagine what our mobile devices mean to us. "Shrine to Voice" by Spencer Chang is an unassuming mobile ‘phone box'. Visitors use their devices to connect to a custom communal web interface, which then prompts visitors to listen to a stranger's hopes or worries, and then leave one of their own. 

Leia Chang's "In Our Own Words", meanwhile, is a poignant altar to connection, empathy, and understanding. Visitors encounter the piece behind a curtain of stories printed on receipt paper. They can kneel before a small screen/keyboard setup, receive a prompt, and key in an answer. In return, they receive a stranger’s response, printed on the spot. Each new print is added to the hanging receipt paper forest. 

Visitors weren’t just limited to looking at the artwork - each artist had the opportunity to give a short talk about their process. When they weren’t presenting, they mingled amongst visitors and readily answered questions. 

This blend of high concept art and accessibility is the essence of The Intersection of Art and Technology (Tiat). The vision and curatorial drive behind it all belong to founder and executive director Ash Herr, 29. She grew up in Texas and discovered a love for creation early on. Tech came a little later, but when it did, she was able to incorporate it into her artistic practice. She’s now worked in creative technology for the last decade. 

“I love new media art. It's one of my favorite things in the world,” 

When she moved to SF, however, Herr was quick to notice a lack of institutional support for media art:

“There weren’t a lot of spaces for us to gather and connect.” 

At the time, Gray Area, a non-profit cultural incubator founded in 2008, was the only space providing that function. For a time, they sufficed, but these past few years saw interest in creative technology surge - Gray Area’s executive & artistic director, Barry Threw, connects this to the most recent tech boom:

“AI, biotech, neurotech, etc, have attracted a new community of technologists who are more conceptually minded and intellectually curious than previous waves,” he explained.

Demand for events, talks, shows, and gatherings related to the field suddenly outstripped the supply. At that point, Herr had already spent three years hosting art and tech meetups, but saw an opportunity to make a larger impact. 

“I thought: maybe if we had a physical space, we could do more together.” 

Herr took her idea, turned it into a proposal, and submitted it to the city's Vacant to Vibrant program. From there, things started moving quickly - Herr and her team got the keys, reshaped the space to suit their needs, and began activating.

The result: since it opened in early November, Tiat has conducted workshops on topics as niche as analog video bending, hosted two exhibitions, and put on shows with esoteric themes like 'water futures' and 'hydro-feminism'. 

"It's been a hoot!" Herr laughed. "The intersection of art and technology is really wide. There are so many disciplines that it encompasses." 

That interdisciplinary approach is part of Tiat's magic. By facilitating the transfer of ideas and concepts across different disciplines, Tiat provides fertile soil for novel ideas to take root. Herr sees this as an important function because creativity is often the driving force behind progress. 

Threw expanded on this idea.

“Artist-led innovation,” he explained, “can create cross-disciplinary ecosystems, find edge cases, generate unexpected ideas, and shape development towards social well-being.”

We’ve seen this process in action throughout history. In the 20th century, for one, Bell Labs gave young researchers the freedom to explore and tinker to their hearts' content. The resulting technologies - transistor, lasers, satellite communication, and more - shaped the modern world. 

These inventions, so fundamental to our everyday lives, are leaps forward that appear obvious only in retrospect. For them to have happened, the ability to use technology as a medium for imagination was a necessary precursor. 

At Tiat, Herr ensures that this spirit of open-ended collaboration thrives.

"Letting people play around with stuff is where you get some of the most interesting ideas," she said, succinctly. 

Experimentation isn't just limited to the artwork itself. Herr enjoys playing around with alternative formats for workshops - one 12-week workshop, for example, charges $300 up front BUT offers $25 back every time participants check in. Another is organized around collaboratively creating an exhibition. The more often you attend, the more say you have in the final result. 

Facilitating experimentation and play isn’t the only reason Tiat is valuable. Recent tech innovations have opened the proverbial floodgates; progress is coming at all of us fast and hard, and shows no sign of stopping. It can be hard to know what to do with all of it. Creative technologists, says Threw, can help paint a picture of the new world that’ll emerge from the chaos: 

“[They] can help communicate with the public about the opportunities and risks of emerging tech, assist people in interpreting the way technology affects their everyday lives, and build the media literacy necessary to adapt to the social change.”

Spaces like Tiat and Gray Area act as platforms for those sorts of exchanges to take place. Herr encourages people from all walks of life to come and hang out - a background in art or technology is not a prerequisite. All that is required is curiosity and an openness to connection. Their events often turn into open discussion forums, with staff, artists, and visitors alike intermingling. In Herr's words:

"The intersection becomes real through active collaboration. Together, we make it the Intersection of Art and Technology."

Tiat is open Wednesday through Friday from 12pm to 6pm, and Saturdays from 11am to 5pm. Information about upcoming events can be found on their website tiat.place or their luma page at luma.com/tiat. They are located in Union Square, 151 Powell St, San Francisco.