B.A.R.G.E. Reports

BARGE, the Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-Aesthetics, is a loose collective of writers, artists, filmmakers, and critics, who have been getting together since 2003 for a number of "critical walks." Starting with a shared interest in exploring the hidden histories of the Bay Area, we've ventured from land-use policies to post-industrial urbanscapes, from sculpted park-life to giant public works, from historical tours to landfills and recycling centers. Taking our cues from the political and aesthetic theories of the Situationists (on the derive and psychogeography), as well as the counter-tourism and research of LA's Center for Land Use and Interpretation and the political (re)mappings of space as proposed by the Black Panther Legacy Tour or the historic anti-war demonstrations in April 2003, we've attempted to think of new ways of "(de)touring" the Bay Area as critical and politicized subjects of our environs, where claims to public space are increasingly fraught.