The transformation happens almost immediately. As soon as I sit my ass in the bus seat I realize it: I'm a tourist in the city I've lived in for the past 12 or so years. Oddly enough, it feels fun and strangely liberating. As we pull away from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts I find myself looking out the window at the same buildings I've passed a thrillion times as if I've never seen them before. The tourist gaze. All it takes is a seat on an air-conditioned custom coach. Of course, the effect is completed when Kate Pocrass's relaxed, yet carefully-modulated voice comes through the coach speakers: "Welcome to Mundane Journeys."

She continues speaking in that strange language we're all familiar with. Y'know, Park Rangerese inflected with a flight attendant dialect. But it's the mischievious glint in her eye and the ocassional smirk that really let's me know that it's going to be an afternoon well-spent. Kate has organized this particular city tour as part her ongoing "Mundane Journeys" project, which was curated into this year's Bay Area Now exhibition.

For those familiar with the increasingly popular artistic embraces of psychogeography, MJ fits into that realm. These artist-facilitated explorations draw attention to commonly ignored aspects of our everyday surroundings, and consequently, ask us to pay attention to the unseen forces that determine how we interact (through seeing, moving, thinking, feeling, exchanging, etc) with the city. Although the French Situationists first coined the term "psychogeography" about fifty years ago, the new breed of psychogeography-influenced art projects have recently been drawing attention internationally as more people become interested in non-static art expressions such as interventions, relational aesthetics, and so on. The audience for the work gladly turns in their stand-and-stare viewing credentials for passports as willing participants.

In these respects, Kate and the Mundane Journeys bus tour succeeded easily. When I saw that the first stop was in the 24th St/Folsom area, I admit that I cringed a little. A tour bus pulls into the Mission with a bunch of artsy gawkers? Is this the part where contemporary art exoticizes local ethnic culture? Fortunately not. Kate's cool tone comes over the loudspeaker as we make our way out of downtown, and draws our attention to the bus's overhead video monitors. A quirky but well-done video piece comes on-screen and begins to explain the history of the Wall Street Journals' stippled portraits instead of using photographs. Out of place? Not once we arrive, get out of the bus, and begin tracking down the suggested points-of-interest on our tour map handouts... Soon enough a small group of us are gathered around a store-front window covered with small (about 2"x3") stipple drawings cut from the pages of the Wall Street Journal. They look they've been there forever. The initial clouds of confusion and delight clear up only to be replaced by new ones. Who? Why? How come I never noticed this before when I went to get a burrito or a slice of pizza?

The other points-of-interest bear their own surprises. And the Journey-ers and I have no problem finding numerous other previously ignored gems of the everyday before getting back on the bus to go to our next two SF locations. To detail the rest would be to give away a little too much of the magic. Suffice it to say that Kate's ability to see the city as more than a place of economic exchange and her willingness to share this perspective opens up numerous other possiblities for play and exploration. If there's one failing of Mundane Journey's, it is perhaps, a little too interesting to be considered mundane.

http://www.mundanejourneys.com