Gray Area Foundation for the Arts

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting art and technology for social good in San Francisco, California. Gray Area hosts exhibitions and music events, software and electronics classes, a media lab, and resident-artist program.[1] Gray Area Foundation for the Arts’ stated purpose is to bring “together the best creative coders, data artists, designers, and makers to create experiments that build social consciousness through digital culture.”[2]

FounderJosette Melchor
HeadquartersSan Francisco
Executive Director
Barry Threw
Key people
Barry Threw, Peter Hirschberg

Founded in 2006 by its Executive Director Josette Melchor and Board Chairman Peter Hirshberg, Gray Area joins similarly focused institutions, like Eyebeam Art and Technology Center and Ars Electronica, in promoting the intersections of art, technology and community by working to produce, exhibit, and develop the creative technical skills that allow for experimentation with and exploration of the most contemporary technologies.

History

Melchor and Hirshberg[3] initially opened Gray Area Gallery in San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) in 2006, following a conversation about the lack of proper venues for the exhibition of new media and technology based art work.[4] By 2008, the gallery incorporated as a non-profit and was renamed Gray Area Foundation for The Arts. In June 2009, Gray Area relocated to its facility 55 Taylor Street, (later, 923 Market Street, then, 2665 Mission Street[5]), near the beginning of Taylor Street.[6] In total, the 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) location had included in addition to the pornography arcade, a bar (Club 65) and liquor store. Leased from property owner Jack Sumski, the space allowed Gray Area to expand its well-established exhibition platform to include artist residencies, educational workshops and symposiums, growing Gray Area into the comprehensive and integrated center for the creation and promotion of technology-based art it is today.[7]

When the Art Theatres[8] pornography arcade that had been there since the 1970s moved out,[9][10] Sumski decided that "it was time to do something in my old age, to get something going, and give the Tenderloin a future" and invested heavily to prepare the site for Gray Area.[11][4] Gray Area Foundation for The Arts is part of a coalition of city agencies, arts organizations and community service providers seeking to revitalize a neighborhood that has historically struggled with the effects of substance abuse, addiction, and poverty.[12][13]

Programs

Exhibitions

Gray Area regularly hosts exhibitions focusing on interactive multimedia and technology, by local and international artists. Past exhibitions held at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts:

  • Zimoun: Solo Exhibition Zimoun
  • Milleux Sonores: Daniel Bisig/Martin Neukom/Jan Schacher, Jason Kahn, Yves Netzhammer/Bernd Schurer, Felix Profos and Jeroen Strijbos/Rob van Rijswijk.
  • Open: C.E.B. Reas, Camille Utterback
  • Prototype: Alphonzo Solorzano, Gabriel Dunne, Ryan Alexander, Miles Stemper & Daniel Massey
  • Transpose: Aaron Koblin & Robert Hodgin

Education

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts offers educational workshops in open source software, such as Processing, SuperCollider, openFrameworks and Arduino as well as electronic sewing, soft circuitry, and wearable technology. Throughout the COVID global pandemic in 2020, Gray Area brought all of its education programs online to reach creators all over the globe.

Gray Area Festival

Launched in 2015, the Gray Area Festival is the first International media arts festival in San Francisco. The format of the festival is art show, daily talks and night performances. With initial presentations by Jane Metcalfe, Michael Naimark, Golan Levin, Camille Utterback and night events by Shigeto, Alessandro Cortini and more. The success of the event led to follow-up festivals in 2016, 2017, and a 2018 edition.[14]

2015

After the successful #ReviveTheGrand campaign which led to the update of the current home of the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, the first Gray Area Festival took place in 2015.

2016

The 2nd year of the Gray Area Festival focused on a prompt by Buckminster Fuller and a holistic approach to the arts. The event kicked off with the Refraction Exhibition.

2017

The 3rd year of the Gray Area Festival focused on the challenges to the optimism of the future.

2018

The Gray Area Festival returned in 2018 with a focus on Blockchain, Distributed Systems and Art as the main theme. The event opened with the Distributed Systems exhibition curated by Barry Threw. The next two days Friday July 27 and Saturday July 28 hosted daytime high level talks around the festival theme with night-time audio visual performances.[14][15][16]

2019

The Gray Area Festival 2019 focused on experience including augmented reality, virtual reality and XR. 2019 centered around the Experiential Space Research Lab, ISM Hexadrome and a robotic exoskeleton performance, Inferno. Also, Gray Area Founder, Josette Melchor, transitioned her role from Executive Director to Board Member making the Gray Area Executive Director, Barry Threw who also served as the curator of Gray Area Festival 2019. [17][18][19][20]

2020

The 6th Gray Area Festival persisted through the challenge of the Coronavirus Pandemic to hold the Gray Area Festival 2020 "Radical Simulation", virtually. Professor D. Fox Harrell from MIT and Ruha Benjamin keynoted the festival.[21] The festival featured Anti-Gone by Theo Triantafyllidis, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Phazero, LaTurbo Avedon, Lawrence Lek, Morehshin Allahyari and Stephanie Dinkins.[22][23]

Partnerships and projects

Gray Area Foundation for The Arts has partnered with MIT Senseable City Lab to produce a multi-faceted series of community initiatives and symposiums called Senseable Cities Speaker Series.[24]

City Centered Festival brought together artists, educators and community leaders within the Tenderloin district to generate ideas of using 'locative media' to better understand and connect in their environment.[25]

Syzygryd is a collaboration with three other arts organizations (Interpretive Arson, False Profit Labs & Ardent Heavy Industries), to create a large scale interactive art piece to be unveiled at the 2010 Burning Man event.[26]

Artist residency

The first five resident artists (Alphonzo Solorzano, Gabriel Dunne, Ryan Alexander, Miles Stemper and Daniel Massey) moved into the space in July 2009. In 2010, three of these resident artists remained. (Gabriel Dunne, Ryan Alexander and Daniel Massey)[27] In 2021 Gray Area partnered with the Human Rights Foundation to launch the Art in Protest Residency Program. The program s an opportunity for artists whose art is dedicated to promoting democracy and human rights globally, to explore and expand their digital practices.

Arts Incubator

The Gray Area Incubator is a peer-driven community of creators developing work at the intersection of art and technology. Membership is a 6-month commitment, though many have continued on much longer to develop their works in the Incubator. Artists work in the disciplines of Visual Media Arts, Creative Code, Virtual & Augmented Reality, Civic Engagement & Digital Activism, Social Entrepreneurship, Data Science, Sound & Audio, and Software & Hardware.[28]

Media coverage

Gray Area's Josette Melchor was selected as one of the five innovators showcased on Ford's The Edge of Progress Tour.[29]

After the 2016 Oakland "Ghostship" warehouse fire, Gray Area raised approximately $1.3 million from over 12,000 donors which it distributed to 390 applicants, ranging from deceased victims' next of kin, displaced residents, people injured in the fire, as well as people who would not be acknowledged by traditional disaster relief organizations, including chosen family within marginalized communities.[30]

References
  1. Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer (21 February 2009). "Arts district to transform lower Taylor Street". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
  2. Gray Area (2012). "Mission". Retrieved 31 Dec 2012.
  3. "Peter Hirshberg".
  4. Mid-Market Street Monitor (2009). "Examiner on Mid-Market Street revival". Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  5. "Home - Gray Area". grayarea.org. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  6. "Gray Area Foundation – Venue". www.gaffta.org. Archived from the original on 27 February 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  7. "February 21st 1pm-4pm: Groundbreaking Ceremony". Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. Archived from the original on 2009-02-24. 1:00 -1:30 p.m.: Doors opens, wine & refreshments 1:30 - 2:00 p.m.: Overview of plans for Taylor St. with Executive Director 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Open for preview of gallery *10:00 p.m - late: "Night For Day" Celebration at The Compound with Osborne (Spectral)
  8. stagedoor (2000-03-01). "00 SF unknown cinema 29". flickr. Retrieved 6 June 2021. A former cinema specialising in adult entertainment in San Francisco.
  9. San Francisco Chronicle (30 September 2009). "An art gallery blossoms on seedy Taylor Street". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  10. SF Weekly (2009). "Arts groups create new music opportunities in the Tenderloin". Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  11. San Francisco Business Times (24 May 2009). "Mid-Market arts district may finally premiere". Retrieved 6 January 2011. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  12. SF Gov: Office of the Mayor (2010). "Mayor Newsom Announces San Francisco Arts Commission Awarded $250,000 Grant..." Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  13. SF Examiner (2010). "Steve Falk: Mid-Market Street's best new hope can happen". Archived from the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  14. "Gray Area Festival". Retrieved 24 June 2018.
  15. McDermott, Matt (25 July 2018). "Gray Area Festival brings Eartheater, Patricia to San Francisco". Resident Advisor. Retrieved 5 Aug 2018.
  16. Kost, Ryan (23 July 2018). "Mission District's Gray Area exists where art, technology intersect". Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  17. Renée Reizman (2 August 2019). "The Future of Conceptual, Immersive Art Hasn't Quite Arrived". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 19 Aug 2020.
  18. Nina Tabios (21 June 2019). "The Future of Conceptual, Immersive Art Hasn't Quite Arrived". The Bay Bridged. Retrieved 19 Aug 2020.
  19. Peter Lawrence Kan (23 July 2019). "Enter Hell in a Robotic Exoskeleton, at Gray Area Festival". SF Weekly. Retrieved 19 Aug 2020.
  20. Nastia Voynovskaya (18 July 2019). "Enter Hell in a Robotic Exoskeleton, at Gray Area Festival". KQED. Retrieved 19 Aug 2020.
  21. "Gray Area Grand Theater: Gray Area Festival 2020". Mission Local. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  22. "Gray Area Festival: Radical Simulation". September 23, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  23. "Gray Area Festival at Gray Area / Grand Theater in San Francisco - September 26, 2020".
  24. Gray Area (2010). "Senseable Cities Speaker Series". Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  25. "City Centered website". 2010. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
  26. "Syzygryd.com". 2010. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
  27. Gray Area (2010). "Artists". Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  28. "Incubator Membership - Gray Area Art & Technology". Gray Area Art & Technology. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
  29. "The Edge of Progress Tour: Technological Art and Robotic Filmmakers in San Francisco". 2009. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  30. Jones, Kevin (18 April 2017). "Gray Area Distributing Remaining Funds From Ghost Ship Donations". Retrieved 24 July 2018.
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