The itinerant new media showcase known as The Intersection of Art and Technology, or TIAT, for short, is moving into a sprawling gallery space at 151 Powell Street.
The 4,900-square-foot retail space beneath the Herbert Hotel on Powell and O’Farrell Streets has two levels: The ground floor includes a main exhibition area and an adjacent nook, which TIAT founder Ash Herr, a 29-year-old creative technologist known by her handle @empowa on social media, wants to turn into an artist lounge-slash-reading library-slash-gift shop. (On my visit earlier this week, Herr had set out a few items she had made herself to possibly sell in the store, including dishes painted with the Happy Mac logo and ceramic incense holders shaped like chunky keyboards and computer mice.)
In the back, cozier gallery spaces descend into a labyrinthine basement of electrical rooms, a slop station (an empty room with one metal sink), more potential galleries, and small artist studios that will soon be occupied by the eight new artists-in-residence for TIAT’s 10-week Creative Future Counterstructures residency, which is funded by the Mozilla Foundation.
The main floor will display large-scale artwork and installations created by the residents, which will be up for sale at “real gallery prices”; it’s even big enough to house Herr’s most ambitious visions: She told me she and the other two members of the TIAT board, Taylor Tabb and Leia Chang, are in talks with an architect to build a stage for artist presentations.
“We want to do everything,” Herr beamed as she showed me around the space. “Movie screenings, workshops, gatherings.”
It’s a huge place, but considering previous TIAT events — like their popular Internet Archive salons and last month’s Playgrounds exhibition at Gray Area — have drawn hundreds of eager attendees, I don’t imagine Herr will have much trouble filling it.
As I toured the space with Herr and Tabb, they answered many of my more specific questions with “TBD,” but progress is happening: That afternoon their internet service provider got their wifi all hooked up, which, for an arts movement that examines the interplay between the real world and cyberspace, is pretty important.
The collective is operating on a tight timeline. Herr and her team secured the lease through the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program, which provides rent subsidies for small businesses to occupy empty downtown storefronts for short-term pop-ups. Previously, 151 Powell housed the Japanese eyewear brand JINS until it shuttered in August 2022, along with much of downtown during the “doom loop” era. (Currently, some of JINS’s eyeglass-themed decor can still be found around the space.) TIAT’s pop-up is only scheduled through the end of January, which means permitting, logistics, construction, and marketing all has to fit into the next 31 days. “Ideally all the set up happens within this next month, so it is accelerated,” Herr said matter-of-factly. “I do think we can do it. It’s a lot of work, but I’m excited for it.”
“Everything’s possible!” she sang in her characteristic upbeat tone.
The space is set to open to the public on November 1.
