Artist Chris Barr: One to Watch
Last weekend, participants were asked to take part in an interactive art piece by UB student and talented artist Chris Barr. Entitled “From Here to There Under an Umbrella”, Chris asked people to log onto his site to schedule a walk downtown with him. He met them at a location of their choosing and escorted them, under his umbrella, to their destination.
This is nothing like the service similarly performed by doormen. Chris’s umbrella is equipped with a digital camera, which records his companion and himself as they make their way through the city. The piece was originally performed at Brooklyn’s 2006 Conflux Festival.
Chris has focused many of his public projects on a concept called psychogeography. Developed in 1953 by a group of avant-garde artists known as the Lettrist International; it is defined by Wikipedia as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals". Chris is very interested in applying the idea of service to this model. Some of his pieces offer people, usually strangers, some form of assistance that facilitates interaction uncommon in relationships typical of that nature.
“People are really very socially disconnected,” Chris told me. “They get up, get in their car and drive to work where they sit in a cubicle and communicate using email. After work they get back in their car and stop at Tops where they don’t have to talk to a cashier because they can use the self-service lane. Then they get back in their car, drive home and watch television. The intimacy of this project forces people to interact.”
“From Here to There Under an Umbrella” documents the different reactions people have when put in a somewhat intimate situation with a complete stranger. Interestingly, almost all of Chris’s “customers” have been women. Most of the conversation is small talk, and sometimes there is no conversation at all. A sunny day with no precipitation also presents an interesting dynamic.
I first became familiar with Chris’s work about 6 months ago when I discovered a link to a service called the Bureau of Workplace Interruptions. The site accepts requests from people who would like to be interrupted while at work by way of the telephone, email, post, or (when possible) in person. I immediately sent the link to all of my friends unfortunate enough to work in a cubicle. This site received coverage online and in the media, and Chris was barraged with email. As a student with limited time and money, Chris was unable to fulfill all of the requests, but worked hard to keep up.
Another of his well-publisized pieces is called “Chris Barr Is Available on Thursday”. BRO contributor Dave Staba wrote a piece about it that ran in the New York Times. Participants posted instructions in an online appointment calendar, scheduling things for Chris to do on nine consecutive Thursdays. Requests ranged from the silly to sincere, the simple to the complex. Chris had set some rules in place to avoid the potential problems that are probably crossing your mind right now. “Appointments” directed him to do an assortment of things. A few of them included giving blood, eating fifty eggs Cool Hand Luke-style, shaving off his body hair, calling strangers to sing happy birthday, clearing his fridge of spoiled or past date items and reading literature on veganism.
“Chris Barr is Available on Thursday” is scheduled to run later in the year at the Tank Loft in Chongqing, China. The show will feature Chinese as well as North American artists.
We will keep you posted on his upcoming projects. In the interim, a visit to his site at
http://www.chrisbarr.net/ will provide you with a glimpse at some innovative, thoughtful and humorous art.
This is a link to last week’s BRO post announcing “From Here to There Under an Umbrella”.
:) good!!!
What is your name? Where do you live?