Model and Strategy
This project invests in a cultural center supporting the development of the art and technology field by providing many opportunities for disparate communities to participate in unique programs that develop creative code projects and interactive art.
If you are new to digital art and software-based art, you can enroll in a Creative Code Education Program. If you are skilled artist or artist team, you can be supported within our Cultural Incubator Program and receive mentorship. Public Events will inspire the next generation of Creative Coders while showcasing the work created by our community. In our Education and Incubation Programs we infuse conceptual and professional development opportunities with local companies to support the creation of new work by individuals and teams of artists.
Within this environment, artists and programmers will build connections, tell untold stories, democratize commentary, and bring together prominent, but separate, pillars of San Francisco society.
Through education and artist development programming, we will collaborate with individual artists, Tech and design companies (like Google, Obscura Digital, Autodesk, Stamen Design, Dolby, and more), local nonprofits (like Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the SFMOMA), and municipal entities (like the SF Planning Department). As an Arts and Technology center Gray Area will collaborate with these partners to produce events, exhibitions, urban prototyping designs and creative code curriculum.
Through collaboration Gray Area positions itself at the center individuals and organizations in disparate fields to advance the use of code, computation, robotics, and interactive hardware as mediums of expression, rather than derivatives of functionality. Through collaborative artist development programs, Gray Area and its partners will lead the advancement of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) Education, recognizing that creative practice and thought are intrinsic, not antithetical, to the designated technical fields.
Impact
Cross pollination between the local Tech and Art communities will create productive discussion, critique, and collaboration.
Artists will be better represented in Tech, the arts will increase investment in digital technologies as creative mediums.
The global online community of Creative Coders will benefit from increased resources and materials. We will also be instigating slack channels and discussion threads on online forum to advance digital discourse.
Media arts educators will benefit from well written open source curriculum and educational materials documented from our program.
We will be elevating the profile of the Media arts in San Francisco, a city whose rich creative history is quickly being overwritten by new cultural influences, many related to the Tech Industry.
The Artist Showcases will bring a much needed point of visibility for emerging media artists and expose the Tech world to their work.
Leadership
-
Josette Melchor
Executive Director