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CELLSPACE
September 4, 2009
October 21, 2013
November 6-11, 2013
This is an attempt at covering the Cellspace saga:
biased, incomplete, and possibly distorted, but
you get what you get, don't you?
Cellspace was a mixed-use
arts/performance/
community space in San Cellspace was hundreds of feet wide, and an
Francisco that sprang entire city block deep. The layout (circa
into existence in the the mid-naughts): there was a big, wide open
mid-90s but it's always performance space with overlooking balconies,
seemed strange to me it a gallery space up front, a few floors of
hadn't been around even artists studios in the back, and beyond that
longer: it seemed like a metal shop and wood shop. And up front
such a fixture of the over the gallery space was a multi-bedroom
scene it was easy to apartment where the whole thing started (and
imagine it had been the artist-in-residence program was about to
around since the 80s. begin).
I remember often strolling
by, looking in the front
door, and wondering what
the deal was with the metal Cellspace was quite the party venue
shop and-- in a vague way-- for many a year, but I don't actually
whether I was cool-enough remember going to many of them... I
for the uber-cool who must was more of a raver in the early 90s
hang out there. than the late.
(A lot of actually being uber-cool But it was a favorite
involves not worrying about stuff stop during the artspan
like this, of course-- and it's open studios weekends,
often struck me over the years the flea market scene
that these bohemian/underground out back was always a
spaces are actually really hungry fun place on Saturday
for anyone with a modicum of afternoons, not to
organizational ability and mention the various
competence and willingness to clothing swaps and such
work... super-cool flakes they that they held.
have a surfeit of, thanks much.)
In the late mid-to-late Naughts, Cellspace
had gotten itself into trouble and the call
went out to help Save the Cell... a few
hundred of us may have shown up at that
gathering, but somehow less than a dozen
stuck, and among them were Dangerbaby and I,
who for a few years found ourselves on the
skeleton crew keeping Cellspace alive during
what turned out to be in it's final years.
The story I'm telling here is
very much pieced together from What I would like to do with this
other people's accounts-- and is treat it as a case study in
one of the things you can learn different styles of organization:
at places like the Cell is how non-profit vs informal "club",
much accounts can vary. collective vs hierarchy, volunteer
vs professional... Cellspace has
tried anything you can think of.
It began in the mid-90s, where some
freaks were renting a (not-quite-legal)
apartment up above an industrial space
on the far side of the Mission District
of San Francisco-- I would guess the
official story was it was an art studio
where they worked on constructing their
puppets and rehearsing pupppet shows.
From the bathroom of this second floor apartment,
a window looked out on a huge, and I would guess
largely unused, space in the interior of the
building, an open framework of girders supporting
a corrugated metal roof.
They dreamed about using it as an events
space, and amazingly enough managed to work
out a deal to do this...
Then I'm a little unclear of the precise
sequence of events, but different things
went on in the next period:
o paying the rent with underground,
unpermitted raves and other parties...
o building out the interior with art
studios, a metal shop, a high loft Much of this construction
area, a low kitchen area, an a/v was pretty crazy: the
board loft they could pretend was loft was hung from the
temporary, and so on. ceiling on heavy bolts
that were just used as
Weirdly enough, no one ever built pegs--
a fixed stage: instead they used
modular, reconfigurable platforms (In more standard
pieced together using 4x8 foot construction, the bolts
boxes made of plywood and two by are tightened down to
fours. create the friction force
that actually bears the
o Cellspace became a non-profit, load. While the shear
and started applying for grant strength of steel is not
money. Throughout the early to be sneered at, it's
period, Cellspace was essentially even better in tension,
run as a collective, with endless which is the way bolts
meetings trying to achieve are intended to be used.)
consensus-- an idea idealistic
people who haven't tried to do this
before keep re-inventing.
Obviously, the operation was too big
for *one* such collective, so some
responsibility was delegated to
smaller collectives: the art studios
cluster, the metal shop cluster, the
events cluster, etc. ("Clusters" are
obviously much cooler and less
bureaucratic than "Departments" or
"subcommittees").
o There were still a half-dozen or
so people living on the premises
during this period, but largely in The funniest one: an
the upstairs "apartment" area-- additional room hidden
another scene where some strange up above the others,
construction took place. with a staircase up to
it hidden in a closet.
(When I realized it was
there, I started calling
it "the priest hole").
In the next period after this, the non-profit
grew in size, and effectively took control from
the old collective. And at some point the
non-profit was taken over by a regime more
interested in youth community services than in
the old arts and events formula. The Mission
had been a Latino neighborhood for some time,
with two gangs claiming it as their territory,
occasionally warring with each other (one
composed of recent immigrants, the other of
American-born latinos). Doing something for
this Latino community had some idealistic
appeal, and also turned out to be an effective
avenue to bring in more grant money.
One reason there was grant money available was very
few people wanted to be in this business, because
it's fundamentally difficult... But Cellspace goes
where where angels fear to tread.
Stories of this period include
gangbanger doormen, and gunfire A house manager from
on the dance floor. that era comments:
"You know what happens when
someone starts shooting in a
night club? You end up with
the floor completely covered
with women's shoes."
Quite a few elaborate projects got
going in this period, like a "media
lab" for people interested in video and
computer-processing. And as a result,
during these years, any event that took
place at Cellspace was documented in a
better-than-competent way...
As time went on, this non-profit/community
service regime ran into trouble. There are
various versions of why it happened: One
is that they were simply hugely corrupt,
and the director looted the place, then
took a job elsewhere before the place
could go under. Another version is that
these people were sincerely hustling to do
community service in a community that
didn't know what to make of them and
wasn't giving them any help-- that version
of the story has them volunteering to sink
tens of thousands of dollars of their own
money into the place to cover short-falls,
but to no avail.
One point: Cellspace lost the use of the
lot they'd been using for the flea market But then, somewhere along
business, and when they lost the income the way, they succeeded
from that they didn't (or couldn't?) find in getting legal permits
anything to replace it with. to do events (this was
apparently during a phase
when it was relatively
Another point: for some reason, the books easier to do so--the new
weren't getting done for a number of years, "Entertainment Commission"
which to my eye suggests some sort of was more event-friendly.
cover-up. In later years when the Fire
Department wanted more
Non-profits in general often run into the control again, and things
problem that it's easier to raise money got tougher).
for special programs than it is to cover
operating expenses-- the temptation is So why didn't they just
always there to borrow money from one hold more events to
account to cover expenses, and try to pay raise money?
it back the next month if you can...
but then, the next month, you also have (1) When they did events
the same problem, the reasons you had they had gang-banger
trouble last time probably haven't gone problems (including I
away... suspect, a group of
doorman/security
I speculate: once you start juggling like employees they couldn't
this, you'd rather delay any accounting that say no to).
you can-- but when that accounting isn't
happening, it gets easier for someone else (2) Events income could
in the organization to do some skimming. pay the rent, but they
also had salaries to
Indirectly, I've heard that some people meet.
later admitted to having stolen some money
from a project they were administering...
But then, I've also heard stories of people
being accused falsely of doing things like
this, and realizing only belately that they
were having trouble with a whispering campaign.
For whatever reason, Cellspace the non-profit hit
a financial wall, all employees-- in those days,
they had employees-- were laid off, the director
fell upwards, taking a job in the city government,
and most of the board walked shortly thereafter.
And then that's where I came into the story, but more
importantly, it's when a number of the old collective
members returned to assist the one remaining board
member.
You could call this the return of the collective, in a
very loose, informal form. Most "collective members"
were artists renting studio space, and they didn't really
have much will or ability to steer the direction of the
place. That fell to the remaining board member, and the
collective members willing to run the "events cluster"
(which quickly dwindled to a handful, and eventually
dwindled down to one very determined old-timer-- not one
of the founding members, but a member of the second
wave).
We staggered along, just barely paying the
bills, operating almost entirely on a
volunteer basis, and with a crushing debt
load from the old regime.
The smart move would've been to go straight
to bankruptcy, to get out from under that
debt, but Cellspace had never been strong on
Smart Moves, and there were reasons why we
avoided that, I think: the remaining board
member wanted to continue paying down past
obligations, and we respected his decision,
and perhaps more to the point, what about
the events permits (such as they were)?
A new organization would have to start over
again in the permitting process.
Cellspace over the years had developed quite
a bit of "good will", including a reputation
in the City government. Even later when the
Fire Department started hassling us to
improve our exits, you could tell they were
being nice about it, trying to give us as
much slack as possible.
So, for several years we managed to
keep the place going, trying to get Conventionally, this
on top of things, coping with the would be called a
hole we were in-- and dealing with "failure" because we
some severe setbacks, like the news didn't keep it going
from the Fire Department that our forever... but a lot
rear exit wasn't good enough. of cool stuff happened
at Cellspace during
those years.
Then there were some different
change-ups and partnerships going on The 2048 artists-in-
in the management of the events residence program.
business (mostly after I had all but
dropped out-- taking a straight-job The regular weekly
again to pay my own bills). events: tango, break
dancing, aztec dance,
Eventually the word went out that the the hula-hoopers...
landlord had had enough silliness
from this half-assed collective in The monthly "Spacecraft"
non-profit's clothing, and the lease group art exhibits.
was going to be turned over to a
circus group that had been a studio A number of amazing
resident at Cellspace in recent special events, like
years... the circus group (along with Cardburgh...
some other folks in partnership) were
going to take over now with more of PAN_DOMESTICATED
an events/performance focus...
The name Cellspace was now gone, though
the place remained... for awhile.
The new regime had the idea
of becoming a "B-Corp", a new That's an interesting move, but I
institution in California suspect it was flawed on the SF scene
intended for "socially in part because it's so new. You
responsible" businesses. want to turn a non-profit arts space
(that does events to pay the bills)
into a for profit bar/night club?
We should let you do this why, exactly?
The circus regime held on for about a
year, with the studio artists gradually
getting squeezed out of the place-- and I infer that the new management
then the Fire Department lowered the didn't have any idea of the
boom on them place, demanding a third complex dance it had taken to
fire exit which clearly wasn't going to get Cellspace permitted with
happen. The landlord finally decided just those 2 exits. I was only
to sell out (a few decades after anyone on the side-lines of that
else would've), and I fear the old Cell process, but I'm in awe of the
will shortly come down with a case of way they managed to get around
condocitis, much like the rest of SF. multiple catch-22 situations...
While it's a shame to see the Oh, the Fire Department
old place go, there was some wants you to construct
consolation in watching the a rear "fire tunnel"?
new management screw-up quite Okay, but that construct-
so quickly... ion project means you
have to bring everything
When that fire tunnel else up to code, time
construction needed to to install some modern HVAC...
happen, the circus guys were
no where to be seen... it
was built by volunteers
drawn from the artists the
circus-dudes immediately
started pushing out.
And that voluminous tale is really just the
barest outline of the Cellspace story...
If you review the various phases of Cell growth
presented above, there are at least five,
and I'm sure that's an oversimplfication.
In any case, what I really wanted to get at is
the different organizational issues in play:
non-profit vs informal "club";
collective vs hierarchy;
volunteer vs professional;
One of the things that was amusing about getting
involved with running Cellspace was that various
different groups kept coming up to us for advice
on how to run an organization. Cellspace was
obvious such a successful, long-lived operation,
clearly we must have some secret...
There were a few things we could say:
o Think twice about becoming a "non-profit".
Many people think we're living in a world The Burning Man
where corporate=evil and non-profit=good, organization
but it's not that simple. originally rejected
the non-profit
o Another thing we could say model in favor of
was that volunteerism works: preserving their
you can get things done freedom as a LLC.
without (many) paid positions.
Only later, when looking
o And a point about decision-making for ways to keep the
structures: There are many project going longer than
organizations that spun-off from the lifespan of the
Cellspace over the years, but not founders, did they
a single one of them is run on the reconsider that.
the collective-model.
A virtue of non-profits
noted by the Longnow group:
New corporations burn
brightly and flare
out-- geocities is
gone, but the internet
archive abides.
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