On a recent Friday evening before one of the most significant storms in months, Ari Feldman was heading down Valencia Street to visit a friend. Feldman is regularly in San Francisco either for work or for art, which is a big part of Feldman’s life.
Feldman, 31, creates immersive art installations that can be as small as a desk or as big as a room. The installations are interactive, sometimes allowing viewers to step into or play with the art pieces. They’re often at big events that attract over a thousand people but are kept hidden from the general public.
“Anytime I can get technology in on it to make my life easier, and I do it. I’ll use laser cutters, CNC routers, but sometimes it’s just a lot of papier-mache or cardboard,” Feldman said.
They describe their art as stepping into a room and being engulfed in a new world. Feldman focuses on exploring themes of community, capitalism, utopias, and dystopias.
Feldman said the work is something like Meow Wolf, an immersive art company in New Mexico. But the group is wanting to branch out and get new people in the scene. Where can people see Feldman’s art?
The art scene Feldman works in, however, is private and all promotional material is kept off any social networks. This scene, an intersection of art and music events, is clandestine and mostly invite-only like the underground rave scenes from the 1990s.
“It’s a secret,” Feldman said. “It’s all word of mouth.”