"San Francisco has always had a spirit of innovation and a desire to be out there as a radical city," says Jared Blumenfeld, one of the city's highest-profile inhabitants. He heads the Department of the Environment and regularly causes a stir with projects such as the introduction of a ban on the use of plastic bags (which Los Angeles has recently emulated). It is surprising how different dimensions overlap in San Francisco, how art serves social purposes, how ecology, pleasure and technical innovations go hand in hand. Perhaps it is precisely in this interdisciplinary approach that the real opportunities lie: abandon the ivory tower, open your eyes wide and involve the reality on your doorstep in your work! There is so much to discover in this West Coast metropolis: eccentric artists like "Chicken John" Rinaldi, or Howard Rheingold, godfather of the virtual web; the largest roof garden in the USA atop the sensational new Academy of Sciences, designed by star architect Renzo Piano, or the Zen Compound disco that generates electricity; Amy Sarabi's avant-garde fashion collection; and the foodie paradise that is the Ferry Plaza market.

           

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