From demo nights to a permanent home for art & technology

Ash runs tiat (aka The Intersection of Art and Technology), a community space and art gallery in San Francisco. What started as a quarterly demo salon in early 2023 has grown into a gallery, an artist residency program, and a daily-programmed space hosting events on media art and creative technology. I spoke with her about the craft of hosting demos and how a salon turned into a permanent space.

Zelda: Tiat started with a demo salon in early 2023. What was the original impulse?

Ash: It was a response to wanting a community I felt didn’t really exist in San Francisco anymore, especially post-pandemic. I wanted to find other people who were as into media art and creative technology as I was. Tiat, really, is something I wished existed, and it became real through the collective effort of people who also wanted the intersection of art and technology to be a place.

The format that emerged initially is what we call a salon. We organize them quarterly. Multiple presenters demo their work in five minutes each, back to back, across an evening. We don’t announce the lineup ahead of time, so most people come in blind, which gives the night a delightful surprise quality when everything comes together.

The five-minute format is a personal bias. I have a pretty short attention span and I’m not good at sitting through long talks, so this format works really well for me. It also means you get a wide variety of perspectives in a single night, across different practices and disciplines, which is what I want from these gatherings. The intersection of art and technology is broad, and a good salon makes that legible in one evening.

San Francisco has a real penchant for demo culture, which is part of why this format works here. So many people are working on interesting projects, and forums for sharing them feel synergistic with the city itself. People here are tech-savvy and yearning to be creative, or wanting to have fun with the things they’re making. That readiness is in the air.

The first salons happened in a third space where I was a member at the time. From there, we hosted at maker spaces around the city, other art non-profits focused on new media, and for the past year and a half we’ve been hosting at the Internet Archive consistently. We’ve also done satellite salons with other institutions.

“Each venue shapes who shows up and how the night feels, which is part of why I’ve been intentional about choosing places that align with the spirit of what we’re doing.”

It’s been beautiful to watch the salons grow, and honestly, I’m still amazed by the people who’ve shown up to be part of it, some of whom are media artists I’ve looked up to as heroes for years.

The lineup is one of the things people love most about the salons. How do you decide who demos, and how do you help them feel ready to share their work?

I care about showcasing a variety of disciplines, backgrounds, and generations. There are so many ways to be a creative technologist at the intersection of art and technology.

A lot of how I curate comes from the fact that I’ve been obsessed with media art and creative technology for over a decade. My understanding of the space has been built up over years of going down rabbit holes, so when I’m putting together a lineup, I’m pulling from my own references and community. We also have a submission form on the event page, so even if I don’t know someone, they can submit a project they’d like to demo. We use that in shaping the lineup too.

Curating ahead of time is something I learned by doing. The very first salons were more open forum, where people could just show up and demo day-of. That didn’t work for the kind of event I wanted to host, because I found people would use it to pitch their startups. I wanted an environment focused on play, practice, and research inquiries. After a while I became more intentional about curating before the event.

Once the lineup is set, helping presenters feel ready is mostly about making sure they know what to expect. Five minutes is short, and the format only works if everyone arrives prepared. I share the order of presenters in advance, walk through the logistics, and we communicate about anything they need from us before they go on. A lot of what makes the night feel smooth has been refined over the past 17 salons by paying attention to what works and adjusting from there. I want to keep making them better.

The salons grew into something much bigger. Walk us through how they led to TIAT becoming a non-profit with a permanent space.

Through the salons, I met so many people who wanted to collaborate and bring a permanent space to the city. A big shoutout to the Mozilla Foundation in particular, who funded the first artist residency we were able to put together. It’s through that process of building the residency that the opportunity to grow a space came together.

The gallery and what it has become is really downstream of the salons and that program with Mozilla. It’s amazing to see how something that started as a gathering of friends has turned into something so much greater. We initially operated under a fiscal sponsor, and eventually we got our own 501c3 status. All of this is still very fresh, and we’re learning every day.

Tiat is community-run. It largely exists through the efforts of people who want it to happen, and we rely on our volunteers to put on events and sustain the space. No one is full-time. It’s a collective effort. Since we’ve had the space, we’ve pretty much had an event every day on art and technology, and we use Luma to make and share all of them.

What have you learned about running a community-driven space?

One thing I’d really emphasize is self-care.

The other thing I’m still figuring out is monetization. Having a physical space forces this into perspective. On one hand, I’ve been working to keep Tiat accessible. All our events are public-facing, anyone can come, and the prices are reasonable for what we cover. People have really appreciated that. On the other hand, we need to sustain the space, pay artists properly for the work they share with us, and have the resources to put on more ambitious programs, showcases, and exhibitions. So I’m constantly thinking about how to keep both of those things true at once.

Looking back, what’s a story or moment that captures what these gatherings have created?

There are a lot, but the one I love most is that one couple actually met at a tiat salon. They sat next to each other during a demo, and they’re still dating now.

We’ve also had presenters go on to raise serious funding for their projects after demoing here, and people who’ve found new collaborators, clients, and commissions through these gatherings. Those outcomes matter, but the relationship is the one that always comes to mind first.

The thing I most want to convey is that you have to have fun. What’s helped tiat grow is the pure joy and passion of the community and the work we’re making. Above all, this is stuff we really care about and find joy in. Let yourself have fun.