What makes you say bygone? San Francisco seems as culturally-relevant today as it's ever been. If anyone's holding back new ideas, its not the people who are coming here from all over the world to start companies.
It is really relevent in terms of tech, but in terms of the arts it has gotten less relevant. In the same way that starving artists moved out of Manhatten. I know there are still free spirits in San Franciso, but as someone who was born in San Francisco I can tell you the city is completely changed.
People have been saying things ain't what they used to be since forever. I'm sure during your youth people were saying the local arts scene's best days were behind it too. In fact, no less an authority than former Suicide Club member and Burning Man cofounder John Law had this to say on the matter:
"When I moved to Frisco (g’head – take that one on!) in 1976 [...] the hippies I met back then [...] all told me the same thing: “Party’s over kid, ya missed it.” Well, they were full of crap on that one. The story of this town as with all towns is one of constant change."
At least in terms of anything measurable I can find, SF's music scene seems to be holding its own, relative to other cities:
> I know there are still free spirits in San Franciso, but as someone who was born in San Francisco I can tell you the city is completely changed.
I hear this all the time from people who have nothing to do with the movements that are happening right now. San Francisco has changed, Burning Man has sold out, activist art is dead, blah blah blah.
Meanwhile insiders don't give a shit, because they're making the culture you're waxing nostalgic about. It's a culture of doing and claiming nobody is doing something is just another excuse not to do something yourself. You don't know what art is happening in San Francisco because you've made yourself an outsider by not participating. People aren't going to go out of their way to include you: why would they? You're not one of the doers.
Soma from FLG is on pier 14 for the next two years. Fallen Cosmos is on Pier 70 this weekend. The bay lights folks just finished funding what they need to make that installation permanent. That's three things that came to mind, a bunch of other stuff is on the horizon.
Illegal stuff?
I am not going to talk about that on HN. That would be a pretty rude thing to do to folks involved with them.
Oakland's great though too, and the center of gravity is definitely not just hanging around in the west bay. Many of the people doing things live in Oakland and are doing them in Oakland. FIGMENT totally burst into reality in Oakland and the art murmurs over there are holding down real regular community art gatherings. The mayor just had her inaguration at AmSteel! I'm thrilled to see art being a thing that happens in the Bay Area beyond some parts of SF. We should all be happy about that.
If you want more, do more. Make your own show.
And yes, I know too many artists who are fleeing the city. It seems every day I hear another friend is giving up trying to stay in SF.
It's past time for this bubble to burst, it needs to happen soon.
Technology is enabling a pretty wide variety of new art ideas:
1. Some SF-based electronic music producers are doing a lot of travel to get sounds recorded from all over the world. From what I can tell, this scene is being driven more by Europe, though.
2. Algorithmic music, live-coded music, partially randomly generated music, are all taking off. DJs running Overtone[1] are becoming more common. A lot of the music this produces is stuff I find really unsettling. But there's a growing scene for it. This has actually stayed pretty separated from the BM scene so it's of particular interest to me.
3. A lot of people are working on reproducing electronic music sounds using acoustic or non-digital means.
4. Burning-man-style metal fire art is getting way complex. Increasing expertise in safely working with propane means more intricately-tubed metal fire designs, sometimes with more moving parts. Some people are trying stuff with alcohol fuels (alcohol mixed with other stuff allows colored flame). A lot of this stuff is controlled with Arduino.
5. Wooden burnable art is mostly just getting bigger, but there's also lot of people doing more intricate stuff because of there being more available laser wood cutters.
6. Arduino combined with a lot of cheaply manufactured parts from China means a lot of neat digital visual stuff, especially with LEDs but sometimes with loopback sound devices, microphones, other sensors (even medical sensors).
7. 8-bit music is making a resurgence as old video game systems become repurposed.
8. Erotic art, BDSM in particular, is huge in SF right now. Say what you want about whether it's art or not, but a lot of people go to actually see it as art. I like the aesthetic (even on people I'm not attracted to).
9. Body modification. Sensory body mods are a big thing. Different styles of tattoos and piercings.
10. Sacred geometry seems to be trending in painting. I'm not as connected to that scene though.
11. Graffiti is falling to the wayside in favor of stencils/stickers.
12. Zines getting big again (and generally way too uninformed and political for me to bother).
13. Projected visual art with uneven projection surfaces is getting to be a thing. Rock opera/projected video is not a thing yet but I want it to be more.
