Jorn Barger - Life

Life

Born 1953 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as the second child of Rex Barger and Criss Barger Stange, Jorn Barger spent his childhood in his hometown. At age 11 he got to use an early programmable digital computer, the Minivac 601. His family moved to Bemus Point, New York, in 1966.

In high school Barger specialized in math and science, but also read Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, and Jiddu Krishnamurti. He graduated a year early, as valedictorian from Maple Grove Jr.-Sr. High School in Bemus Point, then attended Jamestown Community College, Antioch College, New College of Florida and University at Buffalo without taking a degree. In 1973 he decided against a career in computing and "worked on self-discovery" instead for the next six years. During this period, in 1978, he lived for six months at The Farm, Stephen Gaskin's intentional community in Tennessee.

During the first half of the 1980s he programmed games and educational software for the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and the Atari 800. From 1989 to the end of 1992, Barger worked as a research programmer at Northwestern University's Institute for the Learning Sciences under the artificial intelligence researcher Roger Schank. He is not known to have held regular employment since and supports himself with "odd bits of contract work."

Previously a longtime resident of the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, Barger was living in Socorro, New Mexico as of late 2003.