Barry Threw: Executive & Artistic Director of Gray Area
In this episode of RadicalxChange(s), host Matt Prewitt engages in a deep and thoughtful conversation with Barry Threw, Executive & Artistic Director of Gray Area. They explore Barry's diverse career integrating art, technology, and humanities for economic, social, and ecological regeneration, and examine the cultural shifts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Barry and Matt saunter through anecdotes from Burning Man to Joan Didion to the technocratic molding of the Silicon Valley phenomenon — an exciting pathway of cultural importance to walk along.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to Radical Exchanges. In today's episode, host Matt Pruitt talks to Barry through. Barry has had a wide and varied career designing artworks, installations, and products across a wide range of media, disciplines, and platforms. He has developed an integral approach combining art, technology, and humanities, which he feels are necessary for economic, social, and ecological regeneration. He is currently the executive director of Gray Area, a San Francisco nonprofit institution focused on creative action for social transformation through public events, incubation, and education. And it is that location, San Francisco and the wider Bay Area, that forms the core of this conversation. Both Matt and Barry have spent much of their lives in the Bay Area and have seen the culture shift drastically over the past few decades into the techno utopian Silicon Valley world view. They bring their unique perspectives from having worked in political economics, art, and technology to offer a critique of the Silicon Valley phenomenon and all the hype surrounding it. We hope you enjoy this deep and thoughtful exchange. And now, here is Matt Pruitt and Barry Thru.
Alright. I'm happy to be here today with, with Barry Thru, who will tell you all a little bit more about himself in a moment. But, first, I'd like to say, why I am looking forward to talking to you, Barry. So you and I have both, reflected extensively on the sort of state of Bay Area culture and, you know, where it's been and how it got to the point that it is at today, and where we would like to see it go in the future. And, you know, not only have you thought about this really deeply, you are in a position as the leader of of Gray Area to, to play an important role, I think, in the in the development of, Bay Area culture, and what is, you know, kind of, I think, by all accounts, kind of interesting and pivotal moment in, in the in the history of this area. So first of all, welcome. Nice to nice to see you. And
Good to see you. Yeah.
Yeah. We'd love to hear a little bit about, maybe you can tell the audience, in case you're not aware of your work, a little bit more about about who you are and,
and what you do, and then we can jump into it. Yeah. That's great. Thanks so much. And it's great to be here. And I I also think it's a super important conversation these days, and something that I've sort of been directly involved in for, you know, I've been in The Bay about twenty years now. So I guess, you know, to start, I am, executive and artistic director at Gray Area, and we're a cultural incubator in San Francisco. And it's sort of an odd organization in both or unique in terms of both traditional sorts of arts organizations and, organizations, I think, that deal with technology. We're a nonprofit, and we have a big theater space in, the Mission District Of San Francisco. It's the fifteenth year of the organization this year, and so we've moved around a little bit that are at the spot in the Mission District. And, we do a few different things. One is public events. So we do exhibitions and conferences and symposium things. We have education programs, and we have sort of an incubator and research programs that are going on. And so all of these sort of program areas self support one another and create kind of a cycle of professional development that people can go through in the organization. And so we're hitting, you know, the we're focused on this inner you know, so almost a cliche at this point, but the intersection of art and technology, but also, like, interdisciplinary collaborations. We're interested in the ways of knowing and intuition building, that come with taking art and technology in the same conversation, pulling down knowledge the siloed knowledge in, like, vocational, tranches and trying to find some ways of knowing about the world in that sort of way of working. And so we're also a community space. And so we're dealing with a lot of different kind of levels of this puzzle of how to, operate as an organization, which is really thinking about how to reintegrate, I think, some of the ways of working that have been kind of rendered from one another in the last, you know, however long, but at least twenty years that I've seen in in in San Francisco when dealing with technology development.
Say a little more about that. What do you mean rented from one another?
I I mean, the it sort of goes back to, I think, what we're gonna talk about today, which is, like, why is this sort of, like, economic miracle and innovation happening in San Francisco and the Bay Area? And the hypothesis is is that's more of a story of culture and creativity than it is anything else. And as we you know, I think as we'll sort of cover through our conversation as we've become ever more sort of, like, capitalistic and extractive about how we're doing business here and how and the way that the sort of companies that are here are not reinvesting in the kind of local cultural infrastructure in the area has made, an unsustainable situation that's affects our, like, being rendered explicit and, kind of Yeah. In a and characterized and endless think pieces about what's going on here. And, like, my my assertion is that that's largely a problem of, like, of, walking away from cultural support.
Yeah. So let's let's maybe let's lay a little bit of foundation. Like, I think it's, probably everyone in the world, no matter where they are, has some kind of a perspective or some kind of an opinion about, like, what is going on in the Bay Area or what has gone on in the Bay Area. You know, there's there's as you said, there's sort of endless think pieces. There's there's, like, sense of some kind of, a cultural crisis. We're clearly at a a moment in which, people like yourself who are trying to do do culture and and to, you know, advance the, you know, advance their cultural ecosystem of this area are feeling a sense of, like maybe maybe you can put it better than I do, but there's this little bit of a sense of, like, you know, what what what is this area? We're clearly at a a particular moment in the longer arc of Bay Area culture in which people who are living here are or, you know, or who who moved here recently or who've lived here their entire lives, feel feel some kind of a sense of frustration, feel some kind of a sense of, like, some kind of, cultural identity or momentum has been lost or some kind of threat has been lost. Meanwhile, the the entire rest of the country in the world, like, think you know, also has a kind of a negative, narrative about the Bay Area in their mind at this particular moment, which has some truth to it, but kind of lacks nuance lacks the nuance that, you know, people like you and I have been here a long time, have have been able to glean. And, I wonder if you can, I wonder if we can try to, to share, like, your view on exactly, like, what has happened, why we've gotten to this, you know, what feels like a little bit of an of an impasse or a or a a moment of pivot in in Bay Area culture and identity? Like, what has led us to this point Mhmm. So that we can, think more clearly about, what it would take to, to move forward and to and to, you know, I don't know, repair some of the mistakes that have made and perhaps make this place, the a a cultural leader, which we we really think that it can be and should be.
Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think maybe just a little bit about, like, what I was looking for when I got here. Right? And so I, you know, my back I I've sort of made a career in this center of culture and technology kind of space, and I, you know, I I got there, I think, through playing a lot of video games, basically, when I was a kid. But, that got me very interested in and sort of into computers generally. I also played, within the band in high school, played saxophone and things like that. And so when I got you know, I I I basically did that, spent a lot of time on the computer and through, you know, sort of byproducts of, like, playing a lot of video games and having to install things and de install things and reload Windows and stuff like that. Gain some technical familiarity with just, like, how to deal with, you know, technology. My parents, were teachers. My, you know, my mom was a college teacher, so we got Internet access very early through that. And so I had a lot of very early Internet experiences. And so, anyway, when I went to college, I went to college in Boston at Berkeley College of Music to do sound recording because I had some sort of idea that marrying these sort of, the music and sort of technical part into some sort of career would work out for me. And I learned on a lot of, like, large format consoles. And that's right when the sort of digital disruption and music had you know, Napster came out right then, and it was clear that, like, learning those kinds of skills weren't gonna be that valuable ultimately as everything was going to be laptop based. And so I pivoted into doing sort of programming and music synthesis, like computer music programming kind of stuff. And so I I came out to San Francisco directly after that and went to Mills College, for a composition degree in electronic music. Mills College has a center for contemporary music there, which is a, what I wanna say, follow-up. It it it it was birthed from something called the San Francisco Tape Music Center, which was sort of storied electronic music studio, where people like Morton Sabotnick and Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Cinder, Don Buchla sort of, started. Maybe we can go back into this later, but there was a rich kind of, like, electronic music scene and still is in the Bay Area. And so that sort of music brought me here, and, like, the sense of what was culturally possible here, not, you know, how to, cash out in a unicorn, you know, or something like that.
And so say a little bit more about that. Like, what was it you know, what were you what was the, cultural scene that you were attracted to out here?
Well, I mean, I mean, somehow it was just contingent. So I can't say, like, I had a complete strategy around this. Right? All all the dots connect in retrospect. But, it was, you know, one is that there is sort of just like a go west. Like, I was I wanna say manifest destiny even though that term's troubled. But, you know, there's like there there is a West kind of, like, sense of possibility thing in the culture, gold rush, you know, but not not the sort of, like, cash out part of that, but just, I mean, we can sort of, like, wax philosophic about the mythos of California for for days, I think. But, you know, that's part of it. Specifically in San Francisco, the technology part is part of it, but it was less you know, I can say twenty years ago in my mind, it was a lot different because, it wasn't far enough away from, like, the kind of creation myths of, you know, Steve Jobs and Wozniak in their garage. And, you know, those guys met from Atari. So there was still a lot that it was more of a technology felt more creative in the it felt closer to media than it did to, whatever social media is now, which is a different thing. I don't I'm not sure quite how to articulate that, but it was closer to something to to me, to something in the in the space of music and, like, expanded cinema. It was more cinematic than it was,
Right.
Than it was yeah. Was it functional or something? Yeah.
Yeah. There there I think there was a way in which the the technology culture was more of a culture and less of an industry that might be, like, you know, might be,
Yes. I think I think that's right.
Not quite visible to people who've, you know, been looking at it for the past fifteen years.
I yeah. I think that's true. And I think the most the the the aspects of technology that are most interesting to me are things that fall more into the realm of media, and I would say almost cinema, how to create kind of it's almost it's it's almost a cinema kind of history even though that in a very broad and expanded definition of that of that term. And so when I got to San Francisco in 2004, it was, you know, after the first dot com crash, and there wasn't a clear idea that things would be back in this in the way that they came back. You know? It's like Right. Things had rents had gone down. A lot of people have lost a lot of money, but some people hung on to enough money without any clear business sort of, like, without without capital liquidity just flowing around and investing in things to the point that a lot of people were doing their kind of, like, pet projects. So there were a lot of just, like, interesting creative projects going on from people who did did okay from .com one and, were sort of investing in more cultural things here still, which is kind of an interesting difference from what has what happened in either of the other major kind of, like, financial crashes that have, you know, bubbles that broke since then, we didn't really get the same effect out of it, I don't think.
Right. And then there was so there was a, just to, you know, just sort of go quite quickly through, like, the, you know, the secret history of of the Bay Area, if you will. Like, the there was this kind of so there there was a there was a real, you know, greed driven go go era in the late nineties, which was the the first.com boom. Mhmm. It totally crashed. It seemed like all of that was over. There was a bit of there was sort of a calm Mhmm. In the Bay Area between, like, 2001 and, you know, I wanna say 2008, 2009. 2010. But, yeah, somewhere in there. Somewhere in there. From around probably around 2010, actually, is when you know? So so or so there was, like, a there was, like, a decade there where, where the Bay Area culture wasn't what people have in mind today. And, and then the sort of web two social media era, you know, the the era of, like, you know, kind of mega growth of Google and Facebook, took over the whole area basically, around, you know, 09/10/1112. Yep. And, this was the era of, like, I think that, Douglas Rushkoff kind of captured something really important about this era with with that book, you know, throwing rocks at the Google bus. There was, like, the kind of the beginning of a, backlash to to big tech, that happened here that sort of preceded the more national international tech lash conversation that seemed seemed to really happen in around the election the time of Trump's election in 2016. Mhmm. But it was kind of like a mini react, you know, local anti tech reaction happened earlier than that. But I wonder if you can say, like, from from your vantage point, you know, how how did the how did your work shift? How did the culture of the place shift, during, during that time? Which I think is by the way, I think that time is really, really pivotal for in the history of of of this area. Like, I sometimes I, you know, I could sometimes half jokingly tell people that San Francisco died in 2012, and that, you know, after the the city
In in some ways, it's true. Yeah. And I think there were, I think one of the things about it to make clear is that there were some strategic decisions and compromises by the city of San Francisco in terms of policy that, you know, shepherded that through. Right? So I, you know, I I got here in 2004, you know, kind of went through Mills College was kind of a, you know, art school kind of experience with, like, free improv music and stuff like that. I started doing some sound recording and, like, technical work for artists that were doing audio visual performance and things like that for a while and did a cup you know, helped start a electronic music instrument company that made weird synthesis interfaces for string instruments, that's now called Keith McMillan Instruments. There is a whole history of synthesizer manufacturers here that we're still you know, there's there's a lot of musical activity here. Like, maybe we can go back into it later, but, like, Don Buchla, Dave Smith, who's the inventor of Midi, Roger Lynn, who invented the drum machine, Max Matthews, who, invented digital music at Bell Labs, you know, in the mid I don't I can't remember the year at fifties, you know, more or less. And a couple of major music research institutions at you know, there was Mills, but also, UC Berkeley has a music institution called SynMat, and then Stanford has one called Karma, that this, John Chowning started, and he invented frequency modulation synthesis, which, was Intel's Google, was the highest grossing patent that Stanford University owned all the way up till Google, was this, frequency modulation synthesis that Yamaha bought and started this anyway. So, like, that's but that's part of the cultural. You know? It's like, what was the highest grossing patent until Google? Okay. It was this weird of electronic music algorithm. Right? And so that was the kind of, like, output that the Bay Area was kind of having. I started working with a place called Recombinant Media Labs at the time and which still exists, sort of partner organization with Gray Area still. And, we did, do present and commission surround audio visual works. We have, like, sort of a surround video presentation system that can tour and things that we and around that time is when I met, Josette Milchor who's who founded and started Gray Area along with, sort of the group of people that coalesced around that organization, in some of its early you know, it was a small town at that point. It like, in that mid late two thousands area era, because there was sort of less attention to it because of the .com kinda credit. Again, there was a this capital act activity in the same way. You know, everybody met each other pretty quickly that was doing any sort of cultural activities in the city. And so that was about the so, you know, we started working on both gray area and some other stuff at that time. And, originally, it was gonna be a gallery, to support this group of artists in the city that was working on sort of software based art, you know, generative and and software based, artistic output. And then we very quickly turned into a kind of a community space and educational space and did meet ups and things like that. But, that was about the time that the city started really attacking all the nightlife. This place for Combinant Media Labs also had a place in Hunters Point that was called The Compound where we did a lot of after hours shows. And there was a time during, I don't know, 2009, 2010, it might have been 2011, that the, police in the city started shutting down nightlife, like, after hours parties by compensating DJ's laptops. So and a lot of a lot of people were DJing on their, work, like, laptops. This must have been about the time that Ableton Live was in its, like, first releases or something. You know? And so that pretty quickly shut down a lot of the, you know, the in SoMa, particularly, there used to be a lot of kind of after hours and, like, lost parties and things like that. And, they shut all that down pretty quickly. And it must have been about that time that the Twitter headquarters moved in, which I think was one of the bigger kind of, like, points in this story in terms of, you know, a milestone because that movement of a big company into the city, they they were offered, like, major tax subsidies and breaks to do that. And it was really the start of this kind of capitulation to tech and, you know, to to drive this economic growth in terms of policy, which is also coupled. You know, the other side of that is, I I think you can't get away from, like, the current state of San Francisco without talking about real estate generally too and what goes on with kind of, like, zoning and, like, housing costs and prices, which is sort of wrapped up in that a little bit. But, maybe we can get to that. Maybe we can come back to that later, but it's a it's a I'll just mention it because I think it's a big thread also. Yeah.
Well, I think I mean, one one, I think, piece that I just wanna sort of draw out here because I think it's I think it's important is that, like, there was this there was that period of time, you know, when Twitter moved into the city. I think that, you know, Twitter moving into the city was kind of symbolic of a larger of a larger phenomenon that was happening at that time where, basically, Silicon Valley was moving up north up the peninsula Mhmm. To San Francisco. So there used to be kind of a cultural separation or distinction Yeah. Between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. And at, you know, at some point, as the as the big, you know, companies started to grow around the end of the February, a lot they started to hire like crazy, and a lot of the people that they were hiring wanted to live in San Francisco, like thousands of people. Mhmm. And, that that influx of of young tech workers into the city changed the city in a in a in a quite a quite a rapid and dramatic way. I think what's important to see is that, like, the the the the technology culture that came to sort of take over the area later through real estate prices and so on was, like, in a way, was distinct from the culture that preceded it, but was in the same way like an outgrowth of the culture that preceded it and wasn't kind of indebted to it in a way. So there was sort of a weird disconnect that that that didn't didn't happen. Right? Where, you know, some the the the kind of, generative, creative, cultural milieu that made Silicon Valley possible was, you know, squelched by by the culture of the big tech companies, around this time. And there was kind of like a
I mean, is that how you perceived it to? Am I kinda getting this Yeah. I think that's right. I think there was still kinda that, like, wild west and, like, possibilities mentality there partly because it was cheaper, you know, and there were still some, like, raw spaces and things where but at that time, it was even more so than now in a certain way, this, like, startup fever sort of. I mean, now it now it's Right. The caveat to that is we should talk about, like, what's happening with AI now because it does hold some parallels, I think. But, it's an it's an interesting time right now that's, like, both simultaneously boom and bust in San Francisco and, like, it's making a Right. A weird, very like, nobody knows what's gonna happen. You know? It's like it could could fall either way. But, you know, at that time, it was still, like, okay. There were, like, a group of three friends that met at the coffee house every week, and they started a web app. And the web app then was, like, Facebook or whatever. You know? It was, like, seven people that that sort of thing, even prior to even outside of, like, venture capital, which is, like, more of a thing now that people are after. But at at that time, even though that was, you know, put there it's not like there wasn't venture capital, but there was it seemed that there was more of an opportunity just to, like, launch something online and it would, like, take off. You know? It's like the the Right. The field was somehow less crowded and there was still opportunity. And and there was in San Francisco, there was this idea that, again, there was a cultural milieu that was, you would find other creative people there that were just, like, doing interesting stuff, not necessarily looking to, you know, have a high paycheck or just engineer or cash out. So, like, that hadn't disappeared yet. And I think the artistic kind of community there was also felt as a part of that situation that was going on. And the and the thing that I think, you know, the people that were sort of aligned with your Gray Area and the other organizations like it in the city had this idea that those two things weren't separable because there is, you know, there was a, is still a certain subset of the arts community that wasn't interested in media arts. You know, there there there's sort of like a conversation about media arts here that's kind of interesting because, for a long time, art using technology, you know, and sort of silly in a certain way because the history of art is a history of technology development, you know, and vice versa. It's, like, always driven by affordances and technology and, like, what's possible to make new catalyze new forms of creative expression. But in terms of, like, computers and electronics, particularly, a lot of media arts for the longest time was kind of relegated to universities and certain forms of experimental spaces, and wasn't really accepted by the art world at large. And that's something that's really changed in the last five to ten years, which is probably worth talking about. I mean, now if you go to if you watch the press releases from a lot of galleries, I mean or, you go to sort of major cultural things like Art Art Basel, you know, Miami or stuff like that, Really, the art world has adopted the cadence and sort of pastiche of the technology press release and how it describes, like, there there there's innovation and newness and, like, firstness that has to happen there in a way that wasn't true, say, twenty years ago. And that's really and it's really the you know, you can with with a big asterisk around, like, video art and the porta pack, you know, like like handheld video, the first things that the art world at large really took seriously, like, the the traditional or contemporary art world, as such were blockchain, because there was a financialization involved that everybody was interested in. And very early, like, we're not talking about the wave of, like, 2020 in NFTs. It's like earlier than that, there were conversations around it. And AI are like the two first tech conversations that the that, artists and culture cultural producers are the leading use case in the technologies to sort of communicate them to the mass market. But, anyway, we're kind kinda digressing a little bit from that.
Yeah. Well, let's I mean, I wanna let's linger on that for a moment and get back to the main thread. Because, I mean, do do you think that that is why do you think that is? Do you do you think that that is because, the art world follows the promise of large sums of money, or do you think that's because there's something about these technologies that feels, like, you know, interesting or culturally unignorable
for the art world? Or, like, you know, I mean, it's probably something I think it's I think it's deep I I mean, I think it's even, like, maybe deeper than that. I think culturally, our entire world is driven by technology cycles now and, like, the and and there's no choice but to follow it. You know? And I don't I don't I don't say that with any joy even even having been, like, the and it's really for people who are in media arts, I know it's, like, it's pretty much exhausting around the across the board, you know, like, to anyone you talk to because pretty much the practice at this point, is getting as early access as possible to the next thing that comes out and then creating work with it and trying to get on that leading edge of conversation. And, like, I say this as somebody who has spent a, you know, good chunk of my career arguing that and I still believe actually that, like, having artists involved on that level is in certain ways vital. You know? At the same time, surfing hype cycles is like, you know, it's like it's it's gotten to be sort of an exhausting situation. And so there there's something in there that needs, sort of like,
the the I mean, you also see it feels to me like, you know, the artistic possibilities of a new medium are not immediately obvious all the time. Right? So Oh, not at all. Yeah. If you're just moving to the next medium, then you're there's not enough time for an artistic, you know, understanding of that of that medium to to emerge. So And that's Interesting stuff is Yeah. That's that's the point of getting early access. I mean, I think that,
you know, the value of having artists involved is that it amplifies certain capabilities or desires very narrowly at, like, the expense of the periphery. You know? So you lose context and you lose sort of, like, you get very myopic. And part of the, you know, part as gray area, you know, part of what we're trying to do is demonstrate that, you know, the value of adding arts and culture and that that, activity back in to the, you know, early during innovation and development and sort of, you know, critique is that what art does when it's done well is, like, increase the aperture of what you're, you know the context within which you're looking and expand the set of possibilities and find edge cases and do all that stuff. And so I think it's in I think it's, it's interesting because it's really this capital cycle that's the problem and not the interfacing with techno innovation and technologies is the problem. You know, so that's those are so linked that it's almost hard to separate them, but there is something in there that they're not there's some parallax in there where they're not precisely the same thing.
Totally. I think there's there's definitely a distinction there. Yeah. And I mean, if I mean, this kinda brings us back to our the main thread here, which is that, like, what we're what we're trying to understand and grapple with is this sort of a morphous observation that this boom in the related but not identical areas of, you know, capital and technology in the Bay Area has not fed cultural Yeah. Life in the way that
perhaps it might have. Right? Yeah. And and what yeah. What happened during the during the early twenty tens, let's say, was when this sort of, like, local tech lash started happening, some for, you know, for some great reasons. Right? It was, you know, the you mentioned Doug Rushkopf's throwing rocks at the Google bus book, but, I mean, that was, that was a real situation that happened. Right? Like, the the deal was is that the commuter buses from San Francisco down to Silicon Valley started using public, Muni, which is the local bus, you know, line, municipal bus line infrastructure, with all these tax breaks happening at the same time. And so it was like, why are all these private buses using public infrastructure? So it really was, you know, kind of like, I'm I, don't really wanna use the word socialism, but it's like it's it's that in it's that kind of, like, social public service. You know? Like, what's public infrastructure and what's private infrastructure and how does it relate? There was all this sort of, without anybody having any sort of, like, coherent ideology on the city of San Francisco's side, that was a big argument that was going on. You know? And so when we were dealing with art and technology in San Francisco during that period, we were kind of in the worst of both the of all possible positions and still are to some risk in some respect where sort of the art and cultural community's initial reactions were to say, you know, screw tech. They're not, you know, they're not their own malign force in this cultural ecosystem, which I think there's a point there. But also from the other side, you had a lot of technology people that didn't understand why they needed art and culture in their in their practice. And so, I think that there was kind of antagonism in both sides. And I think one of the early things that we were trying to do is say, like, okay. You bring you know, it's like the art and technology people aren't talking to each other. You program certain things to bring them both in the same space and communicate. There will be a synthesis and integration of fields, and then, you know, Pegasus will spring forth from the and instead, the art people didn't know why they needed to go they didn't wanna be in the room with a whole bunch of tech people, and all the tech people had no idea why they needed to go to art stuff. And it's just like just like instead, you have this third what you could make is this and this is the this has always been the challenge of media arts in general, is it turns into a third space kind of thing where it it it's it draws its own cultural borders that's, like, not integrated with the other things that are going on. And so you just end up with another kind of silo where what you're trying to do is, break that down and integrate. And so that's an interesting it's an interesting kinda thing that happened.
It's really interesting. Yeah. I I mean, there seems, so I have a couple sort of observations to make, but let me contextualize them first. I mean, the the reason that I think that this conversation is so interesting is I mean, I find it interesting on multiple levels. One is that, you know, I I, I was born in the Bay Area. I grew up here. I care about this place. I wanna see it, thrive, in a way that I feel that it is not right now. The, but also, I kinda I feel in a way that, like, the the in the same way that the I I think there is a way in which the future of the world happens here first for better or worse and
has for some time. I think yeah. And I think that the Here here here here comes in as to where where you got. Pick one. You know?
Right. And, I think that the, you know, I therefore think it's interesting to think it's not only interesting, but important to try to think about how to address the problems that the Bay Area is facing right now because the Bay Area has been, sort of a canary in the coal mine for a long time in all kinds of ways. Like, if I mean, if you if you thought Facebook was stupid in 2009 and you didn't live in the Bay Area, well, you know, you were right, but also, it was coming. You know? So there's a there's a way in which what the Bay Area is facing right now is is is relevant beyond it. And, and I think that you put you figure out something important, which is this idea of fragmentation. Right? There's a way in which, like, kind of cultural spaces just tend to fragment here and not integrate. The tech people don't wanna talk to the, the art people. The art people don't wanna talk to the tech people. The media art people don't need to talk to the other art people. You know, there's a, and I think you can see that pattern reflected in all kinds of other, other cultural Bay Area contexts. One of which is Burning Man. Right? Burning Man is is an interesting, phenomenon to me precisely because it is you can't imagine anything more of a silo. Right? It creates another parallel world for itself that doesn't really you know, way out there in the the Nevada Desert, that never, you know, never really, integrates, never really reintegrates, never really brings anything back to the rest of the culture, on a scale with the effort that went into building a parallel silo out there in the desert.
Yeah. I think that's true. There are a couple of interesting things there. I mean, this, this fragment this fragmentation of knowledge as sort of an outcome of capitalist specialization and, like, vocational, I am not a sort of, like, anti expert person in any you know, it's like not, you know, throw away the experts or whatever. But, so some degree of some degree of that's necessary. And it's like there's something to, like, spending a long time in your life studying and getting good at, you know, some sort of defined, subject matter. But in terms of being in terms of being interdisciplinary, you know, that as a, institutionally and systemically, there's a problem. So it's not it's not any one person's true culture. But so there and this has gone this divide between, you know, I hate having to use the term art and technology, for a couple of reasons. One is it's been completely co opted in the culture by I mean, it's a meme now. Right? It's like the way intersection of our technology is like a joke in some way. But the real reason I don't like it is there's a language problem there, and automatically by defining those two terms with an and between them, you've already bifurcated that you you you've created a dichotomy between two things that I actually don't think that there's a a difference between in, like, some very real ways. You know? And so I talk a lot of I almost it's like it's one of those deal with the devil thing where it's like, it's the term people understand, and so you use it to kind of, like, define the space you're talking about. But I tend to think more about, like, anti disciplinary collaboration or, like, you know, integrating knowledge fields and things like that, which is more of what we're up to. Anyway, this, you know, this was identified in there were there are a lot of historic examples to this. Right? There's, like, experiments in art and technology, Bell Labs. There's the LACMA Art and Technology Labs. But go back to, there was a book by this guy, CP Snow, called Two Cultures. Do you know the this thing that Mhmm. He had this thing called the two cultures problem, and he was thinking and this is in, I don't remember the year on this book, but it was some early twentieth century early to mid twentieth century. And he was just talking about creatives versus engineers, you know, and having this language, this communication problem between the fields that blocked being able to sort of synthesize and integrate and, like, invent, you know, invent more than Right. More than innovate, you know, which are which are different things. Right? So, really, we're talking about mending a rift that I think is caused by capitalist specialization to some degree between the sort of, like, culture and engineering, technical, and sort of creative. I mean, if you wanna get really cheesy, you know, left brain versus right. I don't I don't put any water in that. But, you know, it's a way it's there's something in that.
Yeah. Well, there's another,
and just And just, like and what so I guess the main point in that is, like, if not in San Francisco, where to attack that problem? That's the that's the point of it. And so, like, why are we doing gray area? Why why is that organization exist in San Francisco is because if ever there were a conversation that the Bay Area should be able to know own and, be a world leader in and would if if the values inherent in that were kind of, supported via cultural infrastructure, like, at scale in the state, like, that there's no place on Earth that should be able to own that conversation more than San Francisco. And instead, it sort of, like, turned its back on that and become extractive. And so now, like, back back to Burning Man to not let that just, like, go by unremarked upon. It's a it's kind of a you have to be delicate with the with the Burning Man conversation because, you know, a lot of people, for people's personal experience with it, you know, there are a lot of folks that have had transformative experiences within Burning Man that I would say fall into this bucket of, like, folks that have learned how to integrate certain sorts of creativity into their, you know, lives. So, like, cool. Right? I think sort of systemically, there has been a problem where it's sort of like it's not what it what is happening. It's it's it's in relation to what isn't happening. Right? And so it's in a situation where you have a bunch of companies, that silo their culture internally and don't invest in the cultural infrastructure in the area. So, I mean, that that's the main thing is that the the the there's a cultural milieu in San Francisco that went from the gold rush all the way through the sixties, made a bunch of companies happen here, and then those companies all became extractive and stopped reinvesting into that sort of cultural infrastructure that supported it. So that's been eroding. And when you have something like Burning Man, which takes up unquantifiable amount of not only financial, but human resources. Like, it can't there's so many people here that most of their cultural activity throughout the year is building a project to go out and burn in in the desert. Mhmm. Then and, like, exports that to this enclave, which, you know, is supported it purports to be sort of, like, anti capital, but it's, like, clearly only sustainable via, like, a huge pouring in of resource. When that's put in juxtaposition and contrast to the sort of, like, erosion of cultural infrastructure in the city of San Francisco itself, it's hard not to see a strategic misstep there if you're interested in, you know, sustainability. Right. Right. You know, and that's again, to say nothing of, like, the friends we made along the way or communities we've built or, like, love we've shared or whatever that that is that is going to be inherent in the social situation of going out in the desert and doing a bunch of drugs or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I mean, in, Yeah. I wanna I wanna make the same caveat that, I mean, if you know, it it's, I have a lot many friends who have, you know, who have, poured a lot of love and sweat and tears and and joy into into Burning Man. And it's a it's it's a very important thing to all Some of my best friends are burners. You know, it's like Exactly. Yeah. And it's great. But, you know, that's but that said, you know, nothing is above criticism. We gotta able to take a look at at at it here in context. Right? And, like, the but there's another, I mean, I I also want to, so where we where we where we need to get to in a moment is, like, where we are now and how we and, you know, what it would what it would look like for San Francisco to or I shouldn't just say San Francisco. Like, really, the Bay Area. What it would look like for the Bay Area to, perform some kind of a overcoming of the Mhmm. Of the cultural crisis that it's in. Mhmm. But before we get there, I wanna I wanna problematize just a little bit further by suggesting by pointing out some older historical things. Right? Yeah. So so one is that, I think another angle on the extractivism that you that you outlined is is is indicated by the following, and I'm gonna connect things to radical exchange a little bit here. Mhmm. So, you know, Henry George, the nineteenth century economist and land reformer who had these kind of wonderful insights about the way that, private property in land allows economic extraction. He had his big life defining insight about how land gets its value, after, you know, when he was living in San Francisco in the eighteen seventies after growing up here. So in in in the eighteen seventies, San Francisco was undergoing a real estate boom. And, despite the real estate boom and the rapid development of the rapid economic development of the city, there was, you know, a steady or increasing amount of, of of poverty and and misery in the city. Henry George noticed this and thought about why that was happening, and he realized what was going on was that as wealth was being created, it was causing the value of land to go up, which was causing rents to go up, which was causing cost of living to go up. And, and so people were being you know, people who didn't own things were being immiserated at precisely the rate at which the city was growing. So, you know, for for people, you know, for the non capitalist class, things were not getting better even though everything was developing in the city. Right? He had that insight in San Francisco, which is which is kind of remarkable to me. Right? Because the you know, even in even in 1870, there was a there's some some sort of disjuncture in the way in the culture and economy of of San Francisco where the prosperity that was being created wasn't recycling back into the social fabric. Mhmm. And, and then, you know, going into the into the twentieth century, I think we have to, you know, we have to tip the cap to, Joan Didion who noticed, who noticed and, like, wrote beautifully about sort of earlier cycles of the same kind of, I don't know, disjuncture or, like, failure of synthesis that was that, you know, that was happening in, in the culture of the Bay Area. You know, she she writes about how, like I mean, it's actually it's it's almost as because it's just this kind of dark destabilizing sort of view that she ultimately paints where, you know, because she, she noticed the sort of vapidity and shallowness of nineteen sixties San Francisco culture from the point of view of someone who had grown up in an earlier California. Right? So she saw this just this kind of, like, lack of lack of moral seriousness, lack of lack of social integration going on in sixties San Francisco that was, you know, kind of belied the rosy flowery hippie narrative. Right? She saw something darker going on underneath that. And and and then later in life, you know, when she when she, like, looked back at her own childhood, she saw actually the same this just the same kind of, like, things are not quite what they seem dimension to the culture that she grew up in in in in in Sacramento, which was kind of like, the, I mean, the best way to she so she grew up in a, basically, a prosperous agricultural class of, like, you know, Central Valley planters who, who were sort of had a conception of themselves and a conception of their identity as Californians that was in very much informed by this kind of, like, Western movie mythos of the pioneers and the Far West and the and, you know, as she got older, she saw the kind of emptiness of that too. So there's just this kind of, like I think that there have actually been many generations of of, of people in, in California who have, tried to solve this puzzle or tried to solve this this riddle of the, you know, the way that the the culture seems to seems to change really rapidly. It seems to, not have a very strong sense of itself, And it seems to it seems to kind of alternate quite dizzyingly between a sense of a sense of enormous promise and freedom and this kind of sense of of of decay and and and and, dynamization. And so, like, I I feel I feel that whatever comes next for California is, I mean, first of all, it needs to be attentive to this, these cycles of of of history, you know, recent history, a little deeper history. And if we can figure something out, if we can figure out, you know, who we are today and how we can how to build a better society in this kind of hypermodern, hyper, you know, like, just, I don't know, psychedelically, kaleidoscopically unstable, society. If we can figure that out here, then it's like that Yeah. Would be good. That would that would I mean and because, like,
the model to the degree it can even be called a model, is attempted to be copied, you know, throughout the world. Right? I mean, they call you know, I I talked about drop shins in on a little bit earlier. I mean, that that's a whole different thing. Right? But they call it the Greater Bay Area there now. Part is like a provocation and part but part because it's alluding it's pointing at something. Right? And then you have things you know, Berlin has Silicon Alley, and there are all sorts of you know, people call their local, you know everybody wants to make these tech innovation hubs that they think is gonna do something similar in terms of economics, but I think that there's not the appreciation for the the culture the cultural cross section with that and how that's contributed, you know, from things like you said, historically, for a lot of things. I mean, you know, Edward Muybridge had vented cinema here, right, At Mhmm. And it was Leland Stanford's horse. You know? It's like the all of this stuff has a deep the sort of things that I would generally put in the bucket of media, has, I think, a strong you know, which includes, like, sensory and perception and things like that. Even in some of the earlier companies, things like there were more things like DPL Research, you know, which was the original VR company and, Jaren Lanier's company. And the stuff that was happening there was not in that company. We was talking about, like, the future of post symbolic communication, you know, and not, like, how do we all have a business meeting in, like, a place where it's impossible to get lunch. You know? Like, it's just like that's not you know, with no legs or whatever. Like, it's like that that sort of it's like what are we doing? You know? We've we've our our kind of, like, humanistic goals are so petty and impoverished now that it's very hard to figure out, like, what, you know, what's going on with that. So, you know, another way to tie this in you know, another framing, I think, for, like, what we're trying to do with gray area in terms of, like, terraforming this, you know, place, can be framed under kind of, like, the per plurality banner too. It's like, in what ways can we create technology and systems and infrastructure that works for, like, to center those on the margins to create a pluralistic system that can take everyone's voice or, you know, like, needs or opinions into account. And our, you know, assertion is that that conversation includes a large cultural component that's, like, inseparable. You know, like, if you don't have that that conversation and that technology building, like, isn't gonna work out. Right? And so it's a lot of what we're doing right now with our we we have our gray area festival that's coming up at the October, which is, I don't know, announced pretty soon. But we're talking all about, like, prototyping these pluralistic technologies with getting artists involved in the technology process and, like, doing this. Art is kind of a loaded word, which is another reason why, like, you kinda have to use it, but I kinda don't like it in a certain sense because it's been so, co opted by this sort of, like, commodity and transactional capital kind of sense. And so I think in terms of, like, media and creativity and, like, communication, you know, is is sort of what we're you know, another way to sort of think about what we're getting at when talking about that. Because historically, most people's conception of art is that you, like, throw a bunch of money in a pile, burn it, and then you're in, like, a white cube, you know, with, like, art and it's, like, the most separated thing from society possible, and we're really talking about reintegrating it into just, like, processes about knowing and interacting and perceiving the world. Right? I mean, I guess it brings us kind of up to today, and I think I like this, the way we're sort of approaching this conversation because there's kind of, like, nothing I am more bored by than, like, predicting the future right now because I'm much more interested in understanding the present. I think we spend too much time trying to speculate on the future when we don't even know where we are. And so I think it's like, okay. Where are we? Right? You know, San Francisco is interesting right now because, you know, I talked a little I said something earlier about, our sort of, like, humanistic goals being impoverished. And, like, I think this is a good like, San Francisco's basically doubled down on that. And now we're saying, like, our eggs are in the basket of a very speculative general intelligence springing forth from this, like, multidimensional statistical model. And then, like, maybe or maybe not destroying humanity. We're not sure, but, like, let's talk about that. And it's, like, such a, you know, talk about, like, wasted intellectual resources, not on the, like, near term tools, you know, which I think they're, uses for and, like, it's a it's not to cast dispersion on as aspersion on, AI in general, but the sort of sci fi conversation we're having about it is so unmoored from reality that it's it's, certainly a Rorschach test for where your values lie. You know? Yeah.
Well, you know, one one thing that, I guess is a bit of a Rorschach test for me. But, you know, if you like, when I look at all of these sort of all the prior cycles of of Bay Area culture, I mean, what what one thing that really just stands out to me is is the, the way in which all of these radical ideas, all of these all of these radical, interesting, amazing, beautiful ideas about, you know, what could be done with technology or what could be done with a different kind of cultural configuration or etcetera have all just been appropriated, like, more fully and more comprehensively than anyone could have ever even imagined. Like like, the we're the the degree to which, you know, x, which was exciting y number of years ago, has been appropriated is always, like, worse than the worst case scenario. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and, and and so what stands out to me is that there's, you know, there's been, like, naivete about the extent of appropriation at every juncture. And you might say that, like, you know, one thing that I noticed in Bay Area history is that, you know, you might think that people thought that what they were doing couldn't be appropriated and that it was appropriated, but that's not actually what you see. In fact, what you what you see in in the history of the Bay Area is actual naivete, actual bliteness about the about the possibility and likelihood of of appropriation. Right? So in other words in other words, people have said, if it gets appropriate, it gets appropriated. You know, it's gonna be cool anyway. Right? I'm I'm gonna build something and yeah. Okay. Maybe the, you know, maybe the capitalist will take it, but that's that's cool. You know? Right? Like, that that I I feel like you see you see that in the, you know, in the history of the technology culture. You you see that in you see that to a certain extent in like, another place where I think you you see something like this is is in, just a sort of, I don't know, moral relativism of, like, you know, of, like, the deadhead culture or sixth or the Burning Man culture. These kind of, you know, like like, you know, for example, in the in the in the nineties, there was like a weird, intersection at Burning Man between, like, hippies and gun nuts. Right? Neither one judging the other. Yeah. Right? That is emblematic of something. Right? And and what and but to me, the lesson is that, like I mean, I I think we need to be more focused on, on, like, economics and political morality. I I I think that, that as we imagine the possibilities for for foundation models and and AI and all the rest of it, the the conversations about about how this affects political economy should they should be the first, second, third, and fourth things that we're talking about. You know? Not the, not the question that we get to after we, you know, finish
being excited about Yeah. It's interesting. I think that, like and all of this goes into, like, a sort of decades long sort of, flight into abstraction. It's like, what is the metaverse and what is cyberspace? It's like, not glass as you strap your face, really. It's like a psychological space of just, like, floating off into pure idealism with no And so, really, we need to get back to some of this stuff is, like, what's the most naive materialist, like, cake you could have on this stuff. Right? So, and I think there's that that sort of one of the things I was gonna mention earlier is that the other interesting thing that's sort of intention with all of this stuff in the Bay Area is, like, there's such a rich history of environmental work here. People that really understand kind of, like, Gaia theory living systems, like, agriculture. Like, there's all very, like, earthbound material conditions kind of, like, stuff here. Some amazing artists like, Helen Meyer Harrison and Newton Harrison at, like, the center from Forest Major down in Santa Cruz. Newton just died, last year. People that are really so this you know, there's there's this history of environmentalism here from you know, that came out of also the a lot of it from the hippie movement. And there's the same sort of cognitive dissonance that happened between you know, one of the things I like to notice and have gone back to is the trans the the sort of switch from Whole Earth to Wired. And the sort of way libertarianism crossed both of those thresholds. And so, you know, Whole Earth had a certain amount of, like, human agency and empowerment, but also sort of environmentalism and sustainability and how people could integrate with tools into their land, you know, the commune movement, like geodesic domes and things were, wrapped up in it. But at some point around, you know, 2000, it switched over into into wired. That was just a wholesale cat you know, there was this sort of John Perry Barlow, you know, we're all citizens of cyberspace, and we're released from all material because we're gonna go build utopia in the electronic superhighway, you know, or whatever. And, you go back to some of the media theorists like McCloughan and, like, every one of these extensions of our nervous system is an amputation. And so it's like, what have we amputated? Right? Right. Right. And so that's kind of continued on to today with this AI stuff where it's like, we're floating in this abstraction about intelligence. You know, people are saying things about intelligence that have no grounding. It's just, like, thinking about the abstraction of what intelligence could be in and of itself with no, like, material conditions around it or, like, in physical embodiment or, like, sensory apparatus or how the lived experience of being an actual person or cow or dog or bat or bacteria or whatever contributes to the way that you perceive and are intelligent about the world. You know? And we're just in this, like, statistical model abstraction that, like, doesn't even make any sense. And so it's really nobody is asking, like like like you were saying earlier, these questions about, who benefits from this stuff? Why are they benefiting? Why are they doing it? Like, where are the data? Like, what is it what does it take to train these things? What are the politics beyond that? You know, it's, like, pretty interesting that somehow you know, I don't know what was the cart and what was the horse in this, but, it's pretty interesting that how much of this pivoted around the Ethereum merge. Because prior to the merge, you had a whole bunch of graphics processing hardware that was dedicated towards mining crypto. Right? And then post merge, you had a lot of resources freed up. And almost immediately after, you saw a boom in AI training on, like, NVIDIA hardware. And so somehow, there was an entire hardware. It's like, where did those resources go after? You know? It's like It's an interesting pattern to notice, but I'm not I'm not sure that that's like, like, I don't I don't think it's a totally conspiracy theory space. But, I mean, I think there's I think there's something you know, I think it's more likely than more likely than UFOs and, like, you know, less likely than the CIA shooting Kennedy or whatever. But, like, somewhere in there is, like, how how does how do the economics around chips and hardware and mining influence what's going on in our sort of intellectual and software and, like, capital space? I think not zero. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. Again, where where is the tail and where is the dog there? I don't know. But
I mean, like, I don't know if, you know, I mean, there's a practical question about whether, you know, OpenAI needed freed up, you know, Bitcoin mining or Ethereum mining rigs to train GPT four. I think the answer is probably not. But but there is an interesting pattern there. You know? And and, like, the, Yeah. I mean, it just reminds you know, I think another really important dimension of of, of California culture, which is spilling over into the to the general bloodstream is, like,
conspiracy theories, you know, Roger Wilson and, you know, Operation Mind Fuck and all all of this stuff. And and k ultra and everything else. Yeah. I mean, we yeah. We haven't really touched up we've sort of danced around LSB and this whole thing, but, like, you know, it's clearly, one of the big threads these days is, like, what are the big trending topics? Wellness and psychedelia. You know? It's like psychedelics are back. Yeah.
With new Psychedelics are back. New approach you can buy,
MDMA on Instagram. Right? It's like, okay. You know? Right.
And and they're being appropriated.
And they're being appropriated and they're, all sorts of claims being made upon them that are, you know, I don't know, true and not true.
Yeah.
There's so there's that. There's this, you know, there there's this AI boom happening here, and I think it also it's part of that abstraction I was talking about earlier. I think part of it is also how people and companies see themselves as being kind of, like, local citizens or not. And I think one of the big, there are a few sort of, like, theories I have into why, you know, e even when you go to more established sorts of known cultural institutions like the opera or ballet or symphony or major museums, you know, in in San Francisco flip to the back of the program, you don't see Google, Facebook, Twitter, Oracle, you know, Sun Microsystem, like, whatever these these companies. You do see some older thing like Hewlett, you know, like, I you know, IBM. Like, there there's some of these sort of twentieth century companies The way some of the new kind of web, you know, let's say, web companies, contribute to culture and you flip you know, if you go to flip to the back of the program even at some of the more well known cultural institute or, like, well established and, like, legible cultural institutions like the symphony or the ballet or the opera or, you know, modern art museum or things like that in San Francisco, you will not see Facebook or Twitter I'm sorry, x or Google, or Oracle or a lot of these other companies. And so what's going on with their sort of, like, cultural philanthropy there? And I think there are a couple of things. One is just that companies like to silo their culture internally. Like I was kind of saying before, you know, if a company wants to do some cultural output, they'll commission artists to put things on the wall of their campuses, or they will, run sort of cultural programs internally that then might be displayed in, like, London or New York centers where they want sort of the cultural prestige of doing something kind of, like, strategically, but they won't do it in San Francisco. And so things don't get reinvested there. That's one thing. Another thing is that, generally, the people that are doing work in technology feel that their work is their philanthropy to a large degree. It's like too, like, absurdly. It's like, I what do you mean? Like, why would I donate? I work on Gmail. Imagine, like, imagine a world without Gmail. I facilitate the communication between, you know, people, like, people's grandmothers would not be in contact with their grandkid, you know, all this stuff. It's like, that is my plan. I'm making the world a better place, you know, which is, like, not untrue, but it's also, like, a different conception of how you contribute to the world than a lot of earlier, like, models of this stuff. Right? And I think a third one is just people like, these companies and maybe people, I don't know, companies don't don't consider themselves local to San Francisco. They consider themselves global companies that happen to be in San Francisco. Like, maybe they have an office here, but they're not really invested in the culture locally. What they're trying to do is, like, operate on a global scale. And so that takes the sort of, like, sense of, like, sort of philanthropy out of it. And I think, you know, now, you know, the in in addition to, like, the wellness and psychedelia, the AI and, like, transhumanist intelligence stuff going on, The other thing going on now is, like, effective altruism. Right? Which is, you know, a lot of these folks that spent their twenties and thirties building up these companies and then, like, watch the Social Dilemma once. You know? We're like, oh, maybe some of the stuff I did was problematic and bad, at least as byproduct. And then it's like, okay. Now, I guess I have to fix the world now. You know? And then so you have all of these weird, like, sort of NGOs popping up that are funded by, like, sort of, like, single people, and they're trying to, like, I'm gonna solve, you know, economics or whatever. And, like, that's another sort of, like, thread here, which is, like, okay. People in in San Francisco, people nobody wants to contribute to stuff that's existing. Everybody wants to start their own new thing and, like, run with it. Right? And so it's really like an NGO based sort of, like, capital and social engagement where, like, you have to have your own initiative. Like, you would never go around and see who's been doing work for, like, thirty years or whatever and, like, try and help their thing. You know? Because they're clearly, they haven't done it right because there are still problems. And so you have to have some new simple, like, idea for how all the problems are gonna be fit. So it's an interesting, like, change in how thinking around philanthropy is done. And it all has to be metric sized and, like, have impact metrics, which which leaves what I think is, like, maybe slower and less definable, but ultimately crucial and more important, which is, like, what's the culture and how do we think? Like, there's culture precedes politics, you know, and a lot of times we're talking about a political project here too where we don't have any grand narratives or ideology of how we even or vision of how we want society to be even today, you know, let alone the future. Like, what do we wanna see happen? And, like, very there's there's very few coherent kind of, like, thoughts around that now from from what I see.
So, so where do we go? What what's the, I mean, this is the the most California question I could possibly ask. Where do we What's your what what what's your quick fix, Barry? What's what's
yeah. It's like, let's go There are a couple good hot springs up north that I can think. It's like they give you the most Californian answer. Right? It's like, well, we're gonna get some beers and go out to you know? It's like smoke them if you got them, baby. Yeah. I mean, I'm biased on this answer, right, because I actually am doing the thing. You know, a thing I I would never call it the answer, but I think it's some sort of at least leverage point, if not a precondition for what I think should happen, which is, like, a cultural engagement with, like, what we're doing in a way that recenters the margins and, sort of listens and sees the conversation through training perception, you know, realigning our sensory apparatuses from just being visual into, like, sound and touch and music and, like, experience. Like, that sort of stuff that's like it really can sort of, I risk, sounding like a hippie myself. But I think there really is something tangible in the way that we're like and it goes I think it goes back for me towards, like, I was saying at the beginning of this. Like, I got into all this stuff through music, and I think there really is something there about, the difference in sort of psychology through auditory and visual, like, you know. McLuhan talks about a lot about this, like, sensory imbalances and things since the printing press. And, like, I I think there's some truth to all of that in just, like, I can say how I thought about and conceived about the world being in sort of a sonic space for so long and then going at like, I was also a coder for a long time too. Like, I did a lot of programming when I was in kind of, like, some some of the I ran a couple software departments. And so it's, palpable, the difference in the way you kinda think and perceive in those different modes of mind and headspace. So I think getting people reembodied, socially connecting, getting into conversations and listening, and doing that through a process and methodology that includes the tangible creation of, like, media artifacts and objects as ways to sort of communicate to the public and think together through these sorts of sensory experiences. Like, that sort of thing, you know, the theory that isn't entirely fleshed out and articulated in an elevator pitch. But in practice, I can say that, like, there's a there there.
You know? Are you, are you a meditator?
Off and on. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I like I like to say I I don't not in the sense of, like, I don't do any very long term or, like, I I'm in and out of meditation. I I bicycle a lot. So I would say, like like cycling, like, road cycling. And I think that, there's some degree of meditation in the best times of that also. But, why do you ask? I mean, yes.
Well, just because, you know, what you're talking about resonates with with the idea behind a lot of different meditative approaches that are about sort of, you know, re like, stabilizing and centering attention around some sensory field. You know?
I think it's pulling I think there's some it's, like, pulling out of we're talking about assailing the Cartesian mind body split with all Mhmm. Weapons at our disposal. You know? Like, that's Yeah. The very base level of it. Right? It's like the destruction of linear perspective and the Cartesian mind body split is, like, really what we're really what we're about.
What what gray area is about? Oh, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. Or what what what we ourselves Yeah. We're listening. Yeah. I mean I don't I don't I don't wanna speak for everybody involved, but that's what I'm up to.
I I think
that's probably a good place to, to to wrap up, but, it's always good to talk to you. I I think that I think that the the cultural challenges of, of the Bay Area are, are really deep, but I'm glad that you're working on them. And I I I think that, you know, I I I guess as I was saying earlier, I I one thing that worries me, you know, frankly, I mean, because I I know that a lot a lot of people around the country and around the world think about the Bay Area too from different kinds of points of view. And, you know, one one thing that worries me is that, is that the is that other places will just kind of, dismiss what's going on in the Bay Area as, look at what a mess those tech bros have made for themselves, which is like, like, yes. But there's there's just a lot more to it. And I think that the the mess that we are in here, is something that, a, can't be summarized quite that simply, and, b, probably holds lessons for, for people in, in other places that are, like, a little bit, you know, a couple clicks back on the social fragmentation, cycle. Yeah. So, I hope, you know, folks get something out of this out of this conversation, you know, folks in the Bay Area and elsewhere. Boy, me too.
I got something out of it. At least we can Terrific. We can be glad of that. Thanks. Thank you.
Thanks again to Barry and Matt for the many interesting anecdotes and their experiences in the ever changing culture of the Bay Area, from the optimistic Wild West mentality to the technocratic molding of the past twenty years. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out if you could rate and subscribe to Radical Exchanges on your favorite podcast platform. This episode was produced by g, Angela Corpuz and co produced, edited, and audio engineered by Aaron Benavides. The Radical Exchanges podcast is executive produced by g, Angela Corpuz, and Matt Pruitt. If you would like to learn more about Radical Exchange, please follow us on Twitter at brad exchange, or check out our website at radical exchange dot org. We also invite you to continue the conversation on our Discord where we have a variety of channels discussing topics like what you heard today, as well as partial common ownership, community currencies, soulbound tokens, and much more. There will be links to to all these in the description. Thanks again for listening, and stay radical.
